


Just Like Heaven

by SoulSurvivor_36



Category: Just Like Heaven (2005), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Alternate Universe - Just Like Heaven (2005) Fusion, Destiel - Freeform, Fic Facer$ Charity Auction 2019, Fluff, M/M, surprise cameos - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-07-30 13:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 53,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20098015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulSurvivor_36/pseuds/SoulSurvivor_36
Summary: Castiel Masterson is a brilliant doctor at St Matthews General Hospital in the heart of San Francisco.  His life seemed to be going right in every way, until a dark, slippery road and oncoming traffic changed that.  Dean Winchester's life is a screaming train wreck.  All he wants is to put it behind him and start fresh... or at least drown his sorrows more completely.It was a cluster F*** of good intentions and poor execution.  All seemed lost, until fate decided to take matters into his own hands and fix it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [duckie0218](https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckie0218/gifts).

> Well hey there!  
This is my first Fic for the Fic Facer$ 2019 auction! You can check out the full catalogue of wonderfully talented artists and authors on the website at www.ficfacers.com  
Also, check out the growing number of works in the Fic Facer$ 2019 collection!
> 
> My bidder's requests for this story were:  
PG (13) Rating  
Main character Dean with Castiel as a love interest  
No explicit sexual content  
Full Movie AU based on Just Like Heaven (2005)  
Rom-Com style
> 
> So here we go!

Castiel closed his eyes for only a moment, but a moment was all it took.

The morning fog rolled around him in sweet delicate tendrils, the heavy air thick with the smell of a thousand flowers, the sunlight trapped in the maze of suspended droplets and refracted until all that was left was a pinkish hue that wrapped itself around every surface. Time stood still as the air slowly cleared inch by inch to reveal a flower trimmed garden path: soft lines of petals and leaves swirled together with the stone in a delicate balance between natural chaos and rigid perfection. Castiel soaked in the warmth from the filtered sunlight as it slowly dissipated the fog, the rolling mist curling around his feet, draining away everything from his mind, body and soul until all that was left was deep peace and a sense of well-being, far from the hectic pace, far from worries and duties. Here, he felt only the joy of being surrounded by such beauty and soothing ca-

Castiel felt the hand on his shoulder before he heard his name and he startled awake, finding himself sitting in one of the hard-plastic chairs tucked under the round table of the break room. A petite brunette nurse in blue scrubs was standing beside him, arms crossed over her chest, right hip popped like she was about to give him her usual sass. He blinked away the last of the heavenly garden and rubbed at his tired eyes. “How long was I out?”

“Maybe six minutes. It’s like I found a unicorn.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m making a joke, Clarence… because you never sleep?”

“That’s not my name.”

With a roll of her eyes she turned away to leave the break room, returning to the hustling, bustling hubbub of the hospital. Castiel stood up and turned to the life-giving fountain of youth, staple of the break room, pushing the dark roast option. He fixated on the sputtering stream of coffee as it poured into the cup. He breathed, thankful for the extra minute the slow machine was allowing him before he got back to work. The door to the break room opened again and he looked up to see Jody walk in dressed in a white lab coat over her brown slacks and light tan shirt. Jody had been his mentor from day one working at St Matthews, she was always in his corner, cheering on his progress through his residency.

“Hey, there you are!”

“Hello, Jody,” Castiel cleared the rust from his voice.

“How long have you been on?” she asked, giving him an appraising look, her eyes narrowed like she was daring him to lie to her.

“Um,” he frowned and looked up at the break room clock over the coffee machine, “twenty-three?”

“Twenty-three? Are you insane? Time to go home, Castiel.”

The coffee fizzled and glurgged its last drop into the cheap paper cup and Castiel picked it up, turning to head out the door and back into action. “That’s not going to get me that attending position.”

With his lips half-cocked into a smile he knew Jody found charming and irresistible, he pushed the door open with his back and joined the mixed crowd of doctors, nurses, attendants, patients and visitors that kept the hospital milling like a busy anthill. With a surge of adrenaline and a much-needed boost from the hot coffee, Castiel joined the fray.

Sign off on a patient release.

Order an EKG for the swollen ankle.

“Castiel, you giraffe, I handled trauma two for you while you were sleeping.”

“I wasn’t slee…”

“You’re welcome.”

Roll of the eyes as Crowley walked away. Back to work.

A male attendant dressed in forest green scrubs and who looked like he was halfway between stoned and drunk handed him two folders, “You’re on in five and eight,” he told him, oblivious to whether or not Castiel could handle the workload.

“Hey Ash!” called out a voice behind Castiel as he reviewed the files, “The eighties are over! When are you getting rid of the mullet?”

“Business up front, party in the back, man! Only way I roll,” answered Ash’s fading voice as Castiel pushed open the door to room five.

Castiel looked up from the papers in front of him as he approached Mrs. Clark who was lying back on a gurney. He glanced around but couldn’t find the nurse, as always. “Lilith?”

“I’m here!”

Castiel turned around to see the tall blonde fussing with a clip to tie up her hair as she rushed into the room. She drew up to the bedside to await instructions as Castiel turned back to the patient.

“How are you feeling Mrs. Clark?”

“Oh my,” slurred speech, unfocused gaze, “Has anyone ever told you that your eyes are as blue as the deepest ocean?”

“Actually, in many places the ocean is too deep for light to reach, so it is in fact completely devoid of colour… including blue,” he informed her with a smile barely pulling at his lips as the eighty-six-year-old woman frowned in confusion.

He turned to Lilith to give her his instructions – an EKG, a CVC, a little less morphine – and he was off again.

Retrieved lab coat. Coffee.

Pop a shoulder back in place.

Patch up a gash from a bicycle incident. Ten stitches.

Ignore the woman’s bare breasts as he examined her supposed malignant melanoma… It was melted chocolate… and had nothing to do with the mild tendonitis in the elbow she came in with insisting it was broken… and had since forgotten while she stared gapingly at his face.

More coffee as he clicked through the computerized patient files to complete his notes.

Catch a walk in before he went sprawling to the floor, “Clear bed two!” he called out as he pressed gauze to a bleeding gash on the man’s head.

“Excuse me, sir, if you could take a seat…” Crowley’s English accent drifted to him from off to the left and he looked up just in time to see the bleached blonde man in the torn jeans and open jean vest turn and pounce on him. Nick, the closest attendant, rushed to Crowley’s aid, struggling to get the man to release his hold. Castiel reached around the counter for a syringe of sedative from the nearby crash cart. Without hesitating he pulled the man’s belt down revealing an alabaster pale butt cheek as Crowley made half-strangled noises. Jab. Push. And the man turned to jelly in Nick’s arms.

“I had it,” Crowley growled at him.

“You’re welcome,” Castiel answered.

“Drugged out twat wrinkled my Armani suit,” he heard Crowley mumble as he moved away to return to work.

Dog bite. More sutures.

Coffee.

Stethoscope. Scalpel. More coffee. Make a sick kid smile. Two bites of salad.

“You have a UTI progressing into…”

“…viral pneumonia…”

“… kidney failure…”

“…diabetic coma…”

Feeling the weariness starting to dig into his bones, Castiel pushed the door to the break room open, seeking out yet another cup of coffee, the bitter aftertaste of the last three still lingering in the back of his throat. Did he have any gum?

In a rare moment of coincidental breaks, he found Jody looking into the little mirror hanging on the wall dabbing at the dark circles under her eyes with concealer while Lisa stood in front of the coffee machine waiting for her dose and Meg leaned back against the window sill eating a vending machine sandwich.

“Is everything alright?” Castiel asked Jody who was looking a little agitated.

“She has a hot date tonight,” Meg said with a smirk.

“Stop it! It’s not a date. It’s just an old friend and we’re just going for coffee.” Castiel spotted Meg over Jody’s shoulder as she mouthed “coffee” and made exaggerated quotation marks in the air. Jody reached up, snapping his attention back to her, “You’re looking a little pale,” she said pinching his face.

“Those are not the cheeks I’d be pinching,” Meg said, cocking an eyebrow his way.

“Haven’t you learned anything from the sexual harassment in the workplace workshop?”

The brunette rolled her eyes in response and straightened up to throw away the plastic her now eaten sandwich had been wrapped in. Lisa turned from the coffee machine with a steaming cup in her hand and Castiel moved up to take her place. “This is the only coffee I’m going out for. After my shift, I have to go home and bake twenty-four gluten-free, nut-free, dairy-free, sugar free cupcakes for Ben’s classmates tomorrow.”

“What’s left? Dreams and an overinflated sense of self-importance?”

“Right? What about you, Meg? Seeing your guy tonight?”

“Nope. Had to cut him loose, his wants didn’t match with my needs, so goodbye and good riddance! I’ll be checking out a few bars, maybe make a few calls, see what kind of trouble I can get into.” Meg leaned back against the edge of the counter on which the coffee machine sat and gave Castiel a once over, “What do you say, Clarence? Wanna join me for a drink… or six?”

Before he could protest, she winked at him and sashayed out of the room. He shook his head as he turned, coffee in hand, to look at his remaining coworkers.

“A word of advice,” Lisa said as she moved past Castiel towards the door, “Enjoy the bachelor life while you can.”

Castiel nodded a twinge of yearning squeezing at him. Jody caught his eye, cocking her head into his line of vision. She gave him a quirky smile as she crinkled her nose. “Don’t listen to them,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ll find the right guy for you, in your own time.”

“I hardly have time for that. Not when there’s more work to do.”

“Castiel,” she called after him as he moved back out towards the busy hallway, “There will always be more work. You have to stop and smell the roses too.”

As he pushed the door and stepped back out into the hallway, Jody’s words had him pensive and forlorn again. He was reminded of that beautiful peaceful garden from his earlier dream and that twinge of yearning turned into a pang of loneliness. It disappeared quickly though as the cell phone in his pocket began to ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey baby bro! Where the hell are ya?” Background giggles and excited screams from Castiel’s nieces.

“I’m at work, but I’ll be there. Promise.”

“Good. ‘Cause this guy, I gotta tell ya, I think he’s perfect for you.” The sound of the oven door squeaking closed.

“Is he there?”

“Naw, not yet. But I hear he’s really nice.”

“You hear?” Castiel whispered fiercely into the telephone, suddenly furious with his brother, “Gabriel, you’re not setting me up with some random stranger.”

“Whoa, chill! I wouldn’t do that to you… yet. He’s a friend of an old friend.”

Lisa walked up to him with papers and he squeezed the phone between his shoulder and cheek while he signed off on a request for x-rays.

“I’m not comfortable with this. I’m capable of meeting men on my own.”

“Hey! You are not backing out of this dinner, mister! I have been cooking this damn lasagna for over an hour while the monsters just run rampant all over the house. DO YOU HAVE TO DO THAT IN HERE?” Castiel pulled the phone away from his ear with a wince, “Go bug mommy you… rugrats.” More excited squealing growing distant. “I’m losing my mind here, tell me you’re on your way.”

“I’ll be there at seven.”

“It is seven.”

“Thirty. Seven thirty,” Castiel added checking his watch and wondering where the time had gone.

Castiel hung up as Gabriel had another outburst, backed by mad giggling, this time something about Rainbow Dash being in the pasta. As he turned a corner in the hallway on his way back to the main desk, he spied Crowley walking in the same direction and chatting with Raphael, one of the surgeons from the fourth floor.

“I have an offer in Phoenix if it doesn’t work out here,” he was saying.

“God loves you, I’m sure you’ll get the attending position.”

“Of course, God loves me, I haven’t been kissing that insufferable man’s ass all this time for sport.”

Castiel’s stomach lurched into his shoes. He had never underestimated Crowley’s ambition to get the attending physician spot at St Matthews, they had been butting heads and trying to one up each other for months, although now it seemed that while Castiel had been stealing cat naps in the break room, Crowley had been worming his way into the Chief of Staff’s good graces.

“Dr. Shurley, gun shot victim in trauma one.”

Castiel looked up to see the man with the rich brown hair and neatly trimmed beard who ran the hospital. As he turned his light blue eyes towards them, Castiel noticed Crowley squaring his shoulders, a self-important smirk on his face. Castiel stood beside him, shoulder to shoulder. Dinner would have to wait; he would not be seen stepping out when lives were at stake. Dr. Shurley looked at them both in turn, his sharp eyes veiled, revealing no hint of emotion or thought.

“How long have you been on, Crowley?”

“Twelve hours,” he bragged.

When God turned to Castiel he answered with, “A few more,” though really it was twice that.

“Alright, Crowley. Scrub in.”

Castiel’s shoulders fell in disappointment. It wasn’t just the gun shot victim’s life hanging in the balance of that decision, he knew that picking Crowley only confirmed what Raphael had said before: God loved Crowley, and Castiel wasn’t worthy.

“Castiel,” Dr. Shurley drew his attention away from his disappointment. “A word, please.”

“Yes, Dr. Shurley?”

“Castiel, I’ve told you before, you can just call me Chuck.” Castiel could not see himself calling the man who ran the hospital by something so informal as… “Chuck”, so he just nodded. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve made my decision. I was going to wait until tomorrow to make the announcement, but there’s no time like the present, right?”

“Of course,” Castiel said, apprehensive and yet hopeful, why would he be telling him this unless…

“I’d like you to stay on as attending physician. You’re of a great value to the hospital, and the team, and unlike some people, you spend more time actually saving lives than kissing my ass… so there is that. A risky play! But I like it.”

Castiel could barely contain his excitement. He reached forward and took Dr. Shurley’s hand in his, shaking it vigorously. All of his hard work was paying off afterall. “Thank you, Doctor Sh-” The man frowned at him and smirked. “…Chuck.” The smirk turned to a wide smile and Castiel continued, “Thank you, so much. I will not disappoint you. I have so many ideas I want to get working on right away.”

Castiel let go of Chuck’s hand and turned to head back to work. “Castiel.” When he turned around again, Dr. Shurley continued, “It can wait until tomorrow. I want you to go home. Afterall, you’ve been here twenty-six hours.” Castiel was surprised, how did he know that? With another knowing smirk and warm crinkled eyes, he added, “I know everything… They don’t call me “God” for nothing you know.”

With a wink he turned and walked away, down a side corridor, disappearing so quickly, it was like he had simply vanished. The news starting to sink in, Castiel trembled with excitement on the inside, feeling weightless and joyful as he turned to head back to his locker to change.

A few minutes later, he stepped into the elevator dressed in his navy suit with a white shirt and blue tie under his tan trench coat. He had combed his hair, or tried to, and although he didn’t have time to shave, he decided that maybe the rugged look suited him.

Just as the doors began to close, Ash jammed his hand between them and forced them to bounce back. “Dr. Masterson, I’m really sorry, but can you maybe check out this guy I’ve got in curtain six? Bowel obstruction, I think.”

Castiel glanced at his watch, he was going to be so late, but they needed him. “Alright,” he said stepping back out of the elevator.

Castiel hurried through the parking lot glancing at his watch, it was 8:30. Gabriel was going to be so angry with him. A distant rumble of thunder made him look up at the uncertain evening sky and walk a little faster towards the parked beige Lincoln Continental. His car often made him the target of his coworkers’ ribbing because it was old and a little beat up, but he had a fondness for the bulky, late seventies car and he just couldn’t see himself parting with it.

As the first few drops began to land on the car and the asphalted parking lot, Castiel sat behind the wheel and started the engine. By the time he was on the road and headed for Gabriel’s house in Noe Valley, it was pouring rain harder than his wipers could handle, but Castiel did not care. He was floating on cloud nine. All of his hopes and ambitions were becoming reality. As long as he could remember, he had wanted to be a doctor, and now, on the very edge of turning thirty, he would have his attending physician title right here in San Francisco, where his roots and his family were.

Things could not have worked out better. Which is maybe why, looking up from turning up the volume on his radio, the bright white headlights didn’t quite register in his mind. Those could not be there, they could not mean what part of his mind was telling him they meant. Not now. Not


	2. Chapter 2

The thick fog rolled into the San Francisco Bay and swept over Golden Gate bridge, wrapping the cautious cars as they made their way from Marin County into San Francisco, or from San Francisco out to Marin County. Fog horns could be heard all over the bay and into the western neighbourhoods as the sound bounced and drowned in the thick veil of condensed water particles. As the bank of clouds approached Divisadero St and the morning light flooded the eastern part of the busy city, the fog gave way to the warming rays of sunlight, the sky a revelation in bright blue.

Dean Winchester had been dragged all over the city already in search of an apartment that he wasn’t sure he wanted. He wasn’t sure of anything these days. The Marina, Noe Valley, SoMa, Sunset, even the Tenderloin – God knows why – and now they were in Russian Hill. That morning alone, Donna had already brought him to visit three places, her ceaseless talking and inexhaustible energy making his head pound as he shuffled along reluctantly.

“This one’s been photographed for magazines,” she had proudly informed him as he gazed perplexedly at the sandbox in the middle of the empty room.

“Magazines,” he repeated, wondering where they had put the furniture. The feng shui nightmare didn’t even have a couch.

“Oh yah… You betcha!”

Dean shook his head.

Then there had been the loft. “Oh gosh, wouldja look at all this space,” the plump blonde had said, smile too wide.

His booted footsteps echoed in the empty room, no amount of furniture or garish artwork on the walls could ever make that place feel like anything but an empty cavern. He had made his way to the TV area, its boundaries defined by a contemporary style, red couch, a low metal and glass coffee table, and a blue area rug, the whole thing was lit by a downright terrifying floor lamp designed to look like the Pixar desk lamp… He quietly named it Godzilla.

One test run of the couch and he knew that it wasn’t for him.

The one they had just walked out of had been the worst. “This one’s not usually available, but the owners are in Palm Springs, isn’t it just great?”

Dean felt as though he was being smothered in an elderly aunt’s voluminous bosom: every inch of the place was decorated with furniture, throw pillows, replicas of that statue of a naked guy, thick tapestries, area rugs upon carpets, tables, arm chairs, buffets, paintings and framed pictures – there was nowhere to look that didn’t have a thousand things crowded into a too small space. And the smell. It was as though every particle of fabric had been doused in lavender oil. It clawed at his throat and made him want to open a window or rip off his nose. He sat on the couch and thought he would disappear in the soft pillows as a puff of scented powder exploded into the air around him, setting off a coughing fit and amplifying his headache.

“I’m sensing a no, here,” Donna said, her ever present smile wavering for just a moment, “Okay, then.”

Dean winced in the sunlight as they stepped back out onto the street. He rubbed at the pain that had settled into a point between his eyes. He could use a drink.

“Listen, Dean, I’m just not getting a clear sense of what you’re looking for, there, ya know?”

From the sheltered entrance to a nearby apartment building, a flyer printed on pink paper suddenly tore away from the advertising billboard. It swirled and danced gracefully as it fluttered in the breeze. It drifted over the sidewalk and around a parked car, then back up in the air with an updraft and swooped again. It swerved around urban obstacles deftly, never staying stuck in place, always moving.

“If you could just tell me a little more about you, I could maybe help a bit better, yeah?” The pink flyer stuck itself to Dean’s leg and he leaned down to sweep it away. “Maybe if you just tell me the kind of work you do, what your family situation is…”

The pink flyer flew and swooped once more, free to tumble in the late morning sunlight and it plastered itself to Dean’s leg again. Annoyed, he reached down and yanked it away in the other direction. “I don’t want to talk about that,” he told Donna gruffly. He would give anything to lie down on a couch, or a bed and just slip into oblivion for a couple hours. His thoughts turned to the six-pack of beer cooling in the motel’s mini fridge where he had left it. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced his search was over for the d-

The pink flyer attached itself to his face, slapping him like it was throwing down a challenge. He grabbed at it and was about to crumple the thing out of spite, when the large black print finally caught his attention. _SUBLET_. He read on and found other words that together made the flyer even more interesting: Furnished. Hardwood. Mason St and Green St.

Dean looked up and around, realizing that Donna was still talking to him, but he hadn’t registered a single word. Not that it mattered; she seemed more than happy to keep jabbering on. When he turned away from her completely though, searching out the address from the flyer, she started asking questions. “Whatcha got there, Dean?”

Without looking back, he handed her the pink paper and set off across the street towards the Victorian style building painted light pink with green trim. It had rounded bow windows at each end plus two more three-panel bay windows in the center of the façade. Established creeping ivy was making its way up the front in many places.

“Dean! C’mon, Dean. No, the chances that a place like this is still available? In this city? You’re dreaming in technicolour! You betcha it’s gone by now. Dean!”

Thoroughly ignoring her as she hobbled after him on her high heels, he jogged up the few steps in the recessed arched entrance. Within minutes, the superintendent was opening the door to an apartment on the top floor of the three-floor walk-up.

“Okay… Ah huh… Right. Okay, then. Bye bye now,” Donna was saying into her phone as Dean walked into the apartment. The hallway was paneled halfway up the walls in rich dark oak, natural light was flooding the main room, reducing the shadows to mere artistic accents on the various textures of the place. But Dean stared numbly at the fridge in the nearby kitchen, wondering if there was any beer. “Well then,” Donna kept going, putting her phone back in her purse, “It’s obvious why this place hasn’t rented yet.”

“Why’s that?” Dean asked automatically, as he went around the open bookcase acting as a separator between areas of the open space main room that looked like it spanned nearly the whole front of the building. He walked through an entryway and back out into the hallway that ran parallel to it.

“Oh, right! There’s no lease. It’s just a month-to-month sublet. But wouldja look at how gorgeous it is?”

Light was coming in through the frosted panes of a door set a few feet from the main entrance and Dean turned the nob and pushed it open while Donna’s voice drifted from inside the apartment where she was still gushing about light and space. Dean walked up the steps and found himself on the roof of the building, sun shining down.

“Oh, Dean! This is… breath taking! And with a private access?” Donna had followed him. “I mean, okay, they didn’t really do much with it, but imagine the possibilities. It’s like having a whole other floor.”

Dean went back to blocking her out, it wasn’t like she was saying anything particularly important. The city was stretched out before him, the glory of the Golden Gate bridge, finally free of the morning fog, the parks speckling the city in green, just beyond the parapet of the bare roof. It would be the perfect spot for any artist, writer, or zen seeker to recharge their battery, that view had the power to heal. But Dean watered a dead plant, abandoned to the baking sun. Then he turned around and went back inside.

For a moment, Donna actually left him alone. The silence felt good for all of thirty seconds before the buzzing in his ears grew louder and filled that empty space. He winced as some of those buzzes began to form into thoughts and memories that he would rather avoid. Forget beer, maybe they had whiskey in the cupboards.

His head was pounding. He spied the red sofa set beside a fireplace, a wooden steamer trunk-style coffee table that would be a great place to set down a drink. By the time Donna’s voice drifted back over him, he was settled in the center of the couch and staring blankly at the painting on the wall between the armchairs across from him.

“I don’t know, Dean,” she sounded disappointed, maybe she was as done with him as he was with her. “Alright. Well, I have a couple places we can check out in Pacific Heights, I just… Okay. Lemme make a couple calls there.”

“I like the couch,” Dean found himself saying detachedly.

“The… couch? Dean… Um… Okay then. He likes the couch.”

~

Gentle sunlight filtered in through the bay windows warming the dark wood accents and polished white oak floors. It spread quickly into the room like a child greeting a friend. Enthusiasm turned to doubt as it touched on the dirty dishes and discarded take-out cartons on the table. It continued tentatively as it pushed further into the room lighting on forgotten socks and a cast-off boot. It gave up entirely as it neared the couch, passing over the empty whiskey bottle, leaving Dean wrapped in gloom and the glow of the television he had unceremoniously set on the table between the armchairs.

_You’re brilliant, you know that? Stop doubting yourself, we need to get this face transplant finished._

“You tell her Dr. Sexy,” Dean slurred as he tilted the beer into his waiting mouth. The cold liquid slid smoothly down his throat and settled into his stomach where it joined the bag of chips and half-pizza he’d already consumed. The rest of the meal was sitting on the wooden chest, nothing between the delicate varnish and the greasy pizza box as empty beer cans crowded around it.

Dean slouched on the couch, his bare feet up on the makeshift table, legs wrapped in dark grey lounge pants, a simple black t-shirt finishing up the ensemble. His stubble was growing out, his hair was unkempt, and his eyes were bloodshot – striking a balance somewhere between homeless-chic and lazy slob.

Dean knocked back his beer again, only to find that the metal canister was empty. He lapped at the last drop clinging to the edge. Resigned to the fact that it was now empty, and he would have to get up again to get a fresh one, Dean crushed the can in his hand and tossed it onto the crowded table, knocking over some of the other junk on there and making it fall to the floor. With a sigh and a gassy burp, he rocked himself to his feet with barely a wobble. He let out a curse when he moved around the couch and tripped on the boot he had thrown off when he had arrived a few days before with a duffel bag of clothes and basic supplies. The TV had arrived a few hours later (who the hell doesn’t have a TV?), followed by fast food delivery and he had basically been in this spot since, getting up only for bathroom breaks, beer, and food re-supplying.

As he moved towards the kitchen, he was vaguely aware that outside the sun was setting and the city lights were flickering on. He reached out and felt the wall for the kitchen light switch, wincing at the glaring, over-bright light over the island counter. He opened the fridge and pulled out one of the three remaining cans on the otherwise bare shelf. He contemplated calling the beer runner again but dismissed it along with the other things he would do later.

He turned back towards the couch and the mindless TV as he cracked the tab on his beer. He stopped dead in his tracks when he looked up to find a man in a tan trench coat standing with his back to him in the middle of the room.

“What the hell?” Dean said, the lights in the room suddenly started flickering and his beer foamed out of the can, spilling over his fingers. He dropped it, shaking his hand as he stared at the mess on the ground. Then the man turned, and his wide blue eyes locked with Dean’s and the air was forced from his lungs like he’d been punched in the gut. “What’re you doing in my house?” Dean burst out angrily.

The man’s eyes narrowed and he tilted his head to the side as he took a slow step towards him. “Your house?” he said, his voice deep and scratchy like he had gravel in his throat. “This is my apartment. I live here.”

Confusion swarmed Dean’s beer fuzzed mind and all he could find to say was, “What?” as the man stepped towards him again. He backed away instinctively, trying to read the situation and find an explanation for what was happening as the lights flickered again.

“I live here. This is my place. All of this, these are my things. So, what are you doing here?”

“Listen buddy, I ain’t buying what you’re selling, okay? So, who are you really? You know what? Scratch that, I don’t care who you are, just get the hell out!”

Dean had backed against the edge of the dining room table and he found himself unable to move out of the way as the man continued to walk towards him, eyes narrowed and shoulders hunched like he was about to attack him. He stopped a handbreadth away, staring him down, the intensity in his eyes stopping Dean from moving, much less thinking. “You should show me some respect. This is my apartment. I was gone a few hours and you broke in and made a mess.”

A few hours, what? Dean turned his head, the airlessness in his lungs loosening a little. A few hours? He hadn’t left the place in days.

“You are going to pick this up, and then you are going to leave. Am I clear?”

Without waiting for an answer, the man side stepped around Dean and the table and disappeared into the kitchen. Dean gulped in the air, his scrambled brain trying desperately to understand what was going on. He had rented this place, he was certain about it… wasn’t he? What if the guy was right? What if… what if it’s a rent scam! That’s it, must be it. What else could it be?

“Hey bud?” Dean called out, realizing that the man had not come back into the room yet. “Dude?” he called again, walking around the table and into the kitchen searching out the terrifying man in the tan trenchcoat. He wasn’t there.

Dean cautiously walked through all the rooms in the apartment: kitchen, hallway, bathroom, bedroom… when he got back to the open space of the living room and there was still no sign of him, Dean could only conclude that the man had disappeared as suddenly as he had arrived.

As far as he could tell, Dean Winchester was all alone once more.


	3. Chapter 3

Night had fallen, and it had brought with it a certain chill in the air. A variety of people could be seen still going about the business of livening up the nighttime streets of beautiful San Francisco. Some were locals, you could tell by the careful layering of the clothes on their back, or the way they carried around a sweater as they walked across the city blocks like they each had their own climates. Many were tourists, clad in shorts and flip flops as they sought refuge from the unexpected cold in one of a hundred little cafés, bistros and restaurants that lined the sidewalks of whatever neighbourhood they happened to be in. Streetlights twinkled, the guiding stars of an urban setting, and warm, inviting light spilled onto the sidewalks from the evening shops. Scents of cinnamon and caffeine, tomato sauce and basil, frying oil and baked bread wafted into the street every time a door opened and closed again.

Dean turned the collar up on his green military jacket and stuck his hands in the pockets as he made his way down the steep incline of the street, moving out of Russian Hill and into North Beach. He was meeting his friend for a coffee that he’d much rather be a drink, but considering the circumstances, he didn’t think alcohol would be such a good idea.

The morning after the encounter with the stranger in his apartment, Dean had found himself unusually motivated. He’d gone down to the hardware store and picked up a deadbolt for the front door to keep out any other lunatics who might wander in. The whole thing had taken an hour of his life, and as he stood pulling on the door handle to test the bolt’s effectiveness, he barely felt a glimmer of accomplishment before whatever energy he’d had was sucked out of him and he sank back onto the couch to resume his binge of daytime TV. Before he knew it, another day had come and gone and he had headed into the bathroom to try and shower away the achy, cruddy, exhausted feeling that seemed to have taken a firm hold of him in the past two years. Ever since…

Dean had turned the tap and wiped the water from his face, the memories buzzing angrily inside his skull. He had stepped out of the shower and grabbed the nearby towel, drying off then wrapping it around his hips. Then he’d reached for the beer he had left on the edge of the sink and taken a long swallow. Eyes squeezed shut, focusing on breathing, he felt the buzzing being soothed away once more.

He’d been startled out of his wits as he’d wiped the condensed steam off the mirror to find the man in the trench coat standing right behind him. “Get out!” he’d said, his gravelly voice ringing in Dean’s ear as he spun around expecting to be toe-to-toe with the man but instead finding the room empty.

“Son of a bitch!” he’d said, rubbing a hand over his face before turning to look at the mirror again. His face and torso had been the only things reflected in the glass and after steadying his pulse, he’d called Charlie. “Can we meet up? I need to see you.”

Dean pulled open the door to Caffe Trieste, and spotted the redhead right away. She was standing at the counter having a seemingly heated argument with the barista. Knowing Charlie, they had probably managed to get on the topic of Harry Potter and were either now disagreeing fiercely on some inane detail or agreeing fanatically. He walked up to her with a “Hey,” that made her turn and wrap her arms around his neck in a show of affection he rarely tolerated from anyone else. “Okay, okay.”

Charlie took a step back and punched him on the arm playfully, “I’m so happy you called! Come on, grab a latte and give me the skinny.”

Dean did as he was told, minus the latte, he preferred his coffee black and bitter. He sat down at the little sidewalk terrace bistro table and took a sip of his hot coffee. He stared at the scarred tabletop for a moment, trying to form the events of the past few days into something coherent that didn’t make him sound completely insane.

“So?” Charlie asked him, leaning toward him where he was hunched over his coffee.

“How’s it going, Charlie?” he stalled.

He glanced up at her face but looked away quickly from her calculating look. “Oh, you know, same old. Fighting battles, winning hearts, making maidens swoon. Made a deal with the Yesteryear Weirdoes. We’re going to team up to stomp the Shadow Orcs. You’re still coming to the Mid-Year Jubilee, right?”

“Uh, yeah. Of course. I wouldn’t miss it,” Dean answered, absently scratching at a stain on the side of the coffee cup.

“Alright, enough stalling, dude. Spill.”

Dean took a deep breath, keeping his eyes lowered. “I’m sorta seeing someone.”

“What? O.M.G. Dean, that’s great!”

Dean looked up at Charlie, startled and confused. “You think this is a good thing?”

“Hell yeah! Who is she? Do I know her? Is she hot?”

“What? No. First of all, it’s a guy.”

“Alright! Same questions, just, you know, flip the gender.”

Exasperated, Dean rubbed at his ever-present headache. When he looked up, Charlie was making some serious eye contact with a girl sitting at a nearby table. Charlie winked and gave her a seductive smile and she blushed, looking down at the table in front of her shyly.

“Charlie, can we focus?”

“Sorry dude, I can’t shut this down,” she answered gesturing to herself, unabashed. “You’d think you’d lighten up now that you’re bumping uglies again.”

“For God’s sake.” Dean sat back in his chair. “He’s not really there!”

Charlie frowned, losing her lighthearted smile for a moment, “As in… emotionally unavailable?”

“As in he’s there and then I turn around and poof. Gone.”

“Hallucination?”

“I guess! You tell me.”

“Is he hot?”

Dean stopped and glared at her, “Not really there, Charlie.”

“Alright, chill,” Charlie pulled a small notepad out of her royal blue blazer’s inside pocket and unclipped the pen. “So, when you saw this guy, were you drinking?”

Dean grew uncomfortable, “Um… maybe a little.”

She stopped scribbling and gave him the look. “Cut the B.S., Dean. I can’t help you if you’re gonna lie to me.”

“Fine! I was wasted, alright? That doesn’t explain why the hell my mind would conjure up some asshole in a trench coat, chewing me out for messing up his apartment!” Dean saw Charlie mouth the words “Trench coat” as she scribbled in her notebook. “Stop that, don’t write this down. This isn’t some session.”

“Dude, come on, seriously?” she said, looking up at him like he had just insulted her, her parents and all her ancestors. “We’re friends. I’m not charging you here. Besides, helping damsels in distress is kinda my thing.”

“Damsel? I am not a damsel in distress.”

“Oh, I dunno, have you seen those big green eyes?” Dean pursed his lips at her, feeling his patience wearing thin. “Ah! And there’s the bitch face.”

Dean slumped in his chair, staring blankly down the street. “I don’t know why I came here.”

“Listen, Dean,” she said, suddenly serious as she reached under the table to put a comforting hand on his knee, “This life might not be so much with the awesome lately, I’ll give you that, but you can’t just check out. This is the first time I’ve seen you in months. You can’t just wallow at home, feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve got to move on, or else, I’m sorry, but this guy? This “asshole in a trenchcoat”? It’s just the beginning. It’s been two years, Dean. It’s time.”

Dean could feel the emotions he normally kept in tight lockdown try to surface and he stood up quickly from the table. “I gotta go.”

“No, Dean. Come on. Sit down. We were talking, this was good.” Dean didn’t answer as he started to walk back to his apartment a few blocks away uphill. “Alright!” he could hear her calling after him, “Smell ya later, I guess!”

He couldn’t even bring himself to wave at her, feelings of guilt and shame joining the cloud of sadness and loneliness that had been hanging over him for some time now.

Back at the apartment, Dean pushed open the door with the number nine, pulling his key out of the lock as he looked around cautiously in case the apparition was waiting for him. But he wasn’t.

“Get it together Winchester,” he mumbled as he closed the door behind him, kicked off his boots and took off his coat. He made his way to the fridge, unable to stop his eyes from darting all around him as he moved from one room to the next, alert, aware, on edge. He made it to the couch with no incident and by the time he was settled in front of the television, beer on its way to his stomach, he had pretty much convinced himself that his mind had made up the whole thing.

Several days passed in much the same way they had for a while, but was made easier since getting the apartment: Get up around noon, crack a beer, settle in front of the television, order delivery (thai, pizza, sub, burgers, whatever), watch more television, drink more beer, shower to get the stench of his own uselessness off, more TV, more beer, eventually pass out sometimes on the bed, repeat. The whole lather, rinse, repeat nature of it was dragging him further into himself and away from the outside world, but he was powerless to stop it.

At first, after returning from his coffee with Charlie, he was jumpy, looking around every now and then because he thought he’d seen the man out of the corner of his eye, but after a little while he grew too exhausted to even remember to be on his toes. The longer he didn’t appear, the more convinced Dean was that he’d made the whole thing up in the first place.

Dean yawned and rubbed at his TV dried eyes. He looked up from his slouched position on the couch to see the dark skies out the window. He glanced at his phone on the table buried under cartons of takeout and saw it was going on 1 a.m. With a groan he unglued himself from the couch and shuffled his way to the bedroom at the other end of the hallway, detouring by the washroom to evacuate his ration of beer. With another groan he crawled onto the bed, burying himself in the soft pillows. He could feel himself succumbing to the blissful nothingness of drunken slumber, the city lights illuminating the bed that had been placed inside the bow windows. It was like being surround by the night sky and cityscape as he fell asleep.

“This is unacceptable,” burst out that gravel grit voice from the foot of the bed.

“Oh God, not again!” Dean said, grabbing the pillow and jamming it on his head to block out the hallucination.

“I will call the police.”

“Go away! This is just a dream,” Dean whined between the pillow and the mattress feeling like his head was going to burst.

“How did you get in here?”

Dean suddenly sat up and glared at the apparition, the room neither dark nor bright, illuminated as it was by the outside lights. He noted that the man was wearing that same tan trench coat as before. “It’s you who’s in here!” he told him angrily, tapping the side of his head with his finger.

The man raised his eyebrows in momentary surprised confusion. Understanding seemed to dawn on him as he nodded slowly. “I see what’s going on here.”

“You do?” Dean had a better view of him as he moved around the foot of the bed. He had dark, almost black, unkempt hair, like he’d gotten caught in a windy updraft and equally dark stubble on his jaw. Under the trench coat, he looked to be wearing a dark blue suit, his blue tie almost matching his eyes making them that much more dramatic.

He sat himself on the edge of the bed and Dean scrambled his feet away, trying to stay away from the man his mind had conjured up. He fixed Dean with an unwavering stare that he felt would eat away his very soul. What demon had he conjured for himself? “Has your alcohol consumption increased recently?”

Surprised into honesty, Dean answered, “Yeah.”

“And have you been hearing voices? Sounds? Maybe seeing things that aren’t there?”

Dean wanted to laugh as he stared at him, “Uh, yeah, I’d say so.”

“Have you recently consulted with a mental health professional?”

Dean’s mind jumped to Charlie right away and he could feel the strange panic in his chest, had this guy been spying on him? “How the hell did you know that?”

“Do you often feel paranoid?” he asked narrowing his eyes like he was analyzing him.

“Get away from me!”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said with a sigh. He looked away for a moment, looking up to the ceiling and clasping his hands together between his knees like he was trying to decide how best to tell some poor kid his dog had been hit by a car. “Look,” he went on, eyes boring into him once more, “It’s obvious what’s going on here.”

“It is?” Dean asked, clutching the pillow to his chest.

“You are clearly in the middle of a psychotic break. You’ve created this fantasy in which you have rented an apartment that in fact belongs to someone else.”

“I have?” Dean asked, feeling the man’s earnestness so completely that he began to doubt himself. How could he be sure of anything anymore? Wasn’t what the man was saying just as likely as him having conjured him out of some dark recess of his mind?

“I can prove it. That pillow has a small red stain on it from when I spilled cough syrup.” Dean unstuck the pillow from his chest and looked down at the underside where an oddly shaped stain he hadn’t noticed before was. “How could I know that if I didn’t live here? Same way I know the bedding is from Nordstrom. The receipt is still in the bedside dresser there.” Dean’s eyes darted towards the dresser, but he didn’t reach for the drawer, the confusion and leftover effects of his alcohol consumption making his brain sluggish. “You have to come to terms with the fact that you may be mentally ill.”

“You really think so?” Dean asked, beginning to worry that this was actually his damaged brain’s way of telling him he needed help. He glanced back at the man sitting on the bed and looking at him with a sympathetic shadow of a smile that Dean found somewhat comforting. He let go of the pillow and sat up, draping his legs over the edge of the mattress, his stockinged feet pressing into the floor, grounding him.

“This is my apartment,” continued the man, coolly, rationally. “This is my bed. That’s my picture.” He looked towards the dresser on the other side of the bed and suddenly stood up stiffly, turned towards it with closed fists. “What did you do with my picture?” The man’s eyes were suddenly flitting around the whole room, landing on certain things and staying fixated before moving on, maybe taking stock of what else had gone missing.

Dean turned to look at the bedside dresser, confused, “That was empty when I got here,” he said, feeling his confidence return like he had just broken through hypnosis.

“It was just there,” the man insisted, glaring at him. “That’s enough. I’m calling the police.”

“No, wait!” Dean said, standing up to intervene. He did not want to end up being on the wrong side of a rental scam headline. So much of all this was unclear, throwing in the police would just complicate—

Dean’s eyes went round like silver dollars and his mind came to complete stop as he watched the man’s hand go through the telephone receiver like it was nothing more than a hologram, or maybe it was the man who wasn’t really there after all.

“What is this? Is this a trick?” the man asked, losing that coolness to his voice momentarily as he tried to grab the phone again and his hand went right through it. Dean could only shake his head as he stared at the strange phenomenon. “You wait right there,” the man told him with a glare like all of this was his fault. “I’m going to use the one in the kitchen.”

He turned, his coat flaring a moment from the momentum, like any coat would have done had it been worn by anybody as they did an about turn, only as this man moved towards the open door and into the hallway, he vanished. Dissolved into thin air like so much dust in sunlight.

Dean dropped to the mattress as his mind raced and his heart tried to escape from his chest. What the hell was going on? No way he had made that whole thing up. No way. But if he wasn’t a figment of his imagination, and if he really did just appear and disappear out of thin air, that would make him a… a gh…

Dean couldn’t even bring himself to think the word it was so outrageous, and yet, hadn’t he seen it with his own two eyes?

A ghost then. In his apartment. Holy Hell.


	4. Chapter 4

The apartment building’s hallways smelled like all such hallways: a meeting of the worlds. Knowing what goes on behind closed doors is not given to everyone, but a quick run through the smells of close-quartered living in an old Victorian building and you can guess fairly accurately which neighbour likes to fire up the bong, who has too many cats, who can’t be bothered to bring their trash all the way to the bins in one go, and who has a penchant for curried foods.

Since moving in, Dean hadn’t spent much time in the common space of the building, and so as he stepped out of his apartment on the top floor, the smells that wafted up the staircase were mostly alien, and unwelcome. He lost no time locking up and heading out into the cool morning air, shrugging on his green coat over his simple grey flannel shirt, which he always preferred to leave unbuttoned, exposing the black t-shirt he usually wore beneath. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He had woken that morning with a driving sense of purpose. He was going to find out what was going on with the walking trench coat situation. Opening his call log he tapped a number near the top as he started walking down the busy residential street.

“Home Sweet Home, Donna Hanscum speaking.”

“Donna, hi.”

“Oh, hiyah there, Dean.”

“I was wondering. What do you know about the previous tenant in my apartment?”

“Why? Is everything okay with the place?”

“Uh, yeah. Everything’s great. I’m just… curious.”

“Well, I don’t know much, the family was pretty tight-lipped about it. Something about an accident. I don’t know. They didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”

“Did he die? Um, the previous… tenant?”

“Well, you better hope so. ‘Cause I tell yah, that’s pretty much the only way we’ll get you off this month-to-month thing. You know, get you a real lease.”

“That’s really not… I mean, I don’t want anyone dead… I just,” Dean stammered, trying to maintain the conversation while his brain was going a mile a minute adding the new information to his understanding of the situation. If the guy had died, then he really was dealing with his ghost. What was he supposed to do about that?

“Oh, grow up, Dean. You betcha people would kill their grandmothers for a lot less around here, I tell ya.”

“Uh. Right. Thanks Donna.”

Dean hit the red end button on the call, and immediately opened his browser. A quick search showed him the perfect place for him to get more information. He set off at a trot to go grab the next MUNI heading out towards the Mission District. A quick transfer at 4th and he stepped off at 16th: just a quick walk away from his destination. Dean could remember a time when the whole messed up transit system had him completely turned around and lost. Coming from a college town in northeast Kansas, the crush of people, some pretty strange to say the least, the never ending traffic, the constant detours because of this festival or that random event had made him feel completely out of place. But she had loved it. You could never be bored in a city with so much character, she used to say.

Dean shook himself out of his distracted funk and turned onto Valencia St. He found his destination a few buildings in, the spacey, hand-painted sign announcing “BOOKS” in golden brown lettering sticking out from the store front was the first thing he saw as he approached. The storefront frame around the large windows was quite uniquely painted itself with a new-age-feel, space blue with stars and planets like the accent wall in the bedroom of a space obsessed child. In the window display, Dean spied old antique furniture and shelves filled with books, the old and rare mixed right in with the new and popular. The lettering on the window announced that he had arrived at the Abandoned Planet Occult and Metaphysical Bookstore.

Trying not to feel like a thousand eyes were on him, he pulled open the door and walked in. The space, that should have been large and open, was cramped and cluttered, broken up by large, custom-made wooden bookshelves that lined all the walls and formed aisles at odd angles. An area opened up in the middle of the main room with spindly-legged tables overflowing with gimmicks and gadgets to communicate with and conjure spirits, tap energy, and other such woo woo stuff. He nearly failed to see the clerk reading a thick volume while sitting behind a desk by the front window and camouflaged by piles of books. Dean gave him a cursory glance, just long enough to register the collar length brown hair and wide shoulders, before turning away, hoping he himself had gone unnoticed. He turned to the shelves, scanning the various section names as he walked through the store looking for something that would help him with his situation while avoiding looking at the other patrons and supposed occult enthusiasts.

He finally landed in front of a large shelving unit topped with the simple section name: “Ghosts.” With a deep breath and a huff, he set about scanning the books in front of him for anything that could help him out. Brightly coloured plastic books and ancient looking leather spines were mingled together as he read the titles turning his head this way and that: _The Key of the Mysteries_, _The Truth About Spirit Communication_, _The Spirits’ Book_, _The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ghosts and Hauntings_, _Spirits Stars and Spells_… Where was he supposed to start?

A splash of bright yellow and a familiar name caught his attention and he pulled it out of its snug spot on the shelf. “Passing On: Brick Holmes’ Guide to the Afterlife” was just the book for him, he thought as he scanned the front cover. It had a picture of the star quarterback about to throw a football pass. Dean nodded to himself, if Brick Holmes had something to say on the subject of ghosts, then maybe he didn’t have to feel so foolish about it.

“Hey,” a voice said from his left, making him startle. A sort of knee jerk reflex made him try to shield the book in his hands from the tall stranger now standing beside him. Dean wasn’t used to being towered over, at six-foot-one, he was considered tall in most gatherings, but this guy made him feel like a shrimp. “Brick Holmes huh?” the man went on nodding to the book in Dean’s hands. He was somewhat relieved to realize that the giant was in fact the clerk he had spied coming in, and not some random San Franciscan. Besides, this guy looked like he wouldn’t laugh at him, maybe.

“Uh, yeah,” Dean cleared his throat, “I mean, the guy is a true athlete, right? Played at the top of this game for like a million years… and national best seller… must know something about something.”

“Oh yeah, the guy was amazing. Bought it in a car crash last year, though. Kind of made his book sales skyrocket. At least for a while.”

“Right,” Dean mumbled, putting the book back on the shelf. “You believe in any of this… stuff?”

“There’s plenty of evidence to suggest the existence of the afterlife.”

“Well, okay, but do you really believe it?”

“Doesn’t it make sense?” the man hunched forward a little, a light sparking behind his eyes as his voice took on a hushed, urgent tone, “So, get this, if a human is only flesh and bone, then yeah okay, when the body stops working it decays and returns to the soil. But how do you account for the twenty-one grams? MacDougall theorized in the early twentieth century that the human soul had weight. He concluded that the loss of weight on the moment of death was a direct result of the soul departing from the dead vessel. So, if that’s the case, it makes sense that that energy, that 21 grams of soul, can continue to impact and affect the world around it… if it chooses to stick around that is.”

Dean swallowed forcefully, stunned a moment by the man’s passionate intensity on the subject. He recovered quickly though and raised his eyebrows, returning to his more comfortable skeptic sarcasm. “You’re like a walking encyclopedia of weirdness, you know that?”

With an endearing chuckle, the man looked around with a smile on his face, “Yeah. I know.” He paused looking around at the bookshelves, “I grew up with this stuff. My dad owns the store, and his dad before him. My grandfather dedicated his entire life to the research into everything supernatural. A true man of letters. This is his legacy.”

Dean nodded as he looked around at the shop. “Anyways,” continued the tall bookworm with the stature of a moose, “What brings you to Abandoned Planet today?”

“Uh…” Dean stalled searching for a way to put into words what had happened in his apartment. He waved his hand towards the bookshelf absently.

“General curiosity?” the man asked. Dean pursed his lips and frowned. “Encounter?” With a sigh Dean nodded, and the man crossed his arms, hunching forward again as his eyes lit up. “What kind?”

“Aliens didn’t probe my butt if that’s what you’re asking,” Dean answered defensively.

The man took a step back, raising his hands in apology. Dean relaxed a little, deciding it would not help him at all to send the guy packing, and he really needed help if he wanted to go back to not worrying that some ghost dude was gonna pop up when he’s in the middle of taking a dump.

“I’m Sam, by the way,” the man said holding his hand out towards him. Dean slipped his hand in his uncertainly.

“Dean.”

“So, according to the lore, there are a lot of different types of encounters when it comes to ghosts. Ectoplasm, orbs, cold spots, sometimes they manifest with odd noises, like scratches and knocks.”

“What if this… ghost… appears in the shape of an angry dude in a trench coat that wants me to leave my apartment.”

Sam’s eyes went round like saucers for a moment, “You’re talking about a full spectral manifestation,” he whispered in awe.

“I guess. Is that bad?”

“No, just really rare. Okay, I think I have just the books for you.”

“Wait… books, ess? As in more than one?”

Sam started pulling books off the shelf, his enthusiastic patter turning to a buzz in Dean’s ears as he found himself cradling a growing tower in his arms. He was then shepherded to the desk Sam had been sitting at when he had first come in, and somehow his credit card came into play and before he knew it, he was back on the street with his newly purchased books contemplating how crazy he would look on the MUNI with this monument to paranormal research. He turned his feet back down the street and his eyes landed on the naked man in sneakers and white socks holding a grocery bag nearly overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetables and Dean figured, resigned, that he’d pretty much look no stranger in comparison.

~

Dean sat on the custom sofa that was built into the rounded bow window in the living room with books scattered and piled all around him. He sat in the semi-dark, the only light coming from the kitchen, the city lights outside and the dozen candles the book in his hands had told him to light. He sipped at his cup of hot coffee, the headache forming behind his right eye making him wish it was bourbon instead, but he had decided that he would do this thing sober and though he regretted that idea, along with the whole ridiculous séance B.S., he was determined to see it through. Every time he’d seen the ghost he had been wasted, he needed to prove to himself that it wasn’t all a drunken hallucination. He put the coffee cup back down on the closed book beside him and looked over the incantation he was supposed to be saying out loud.

“Probably just a load of gibberish. Damned Latin,” he mumbled. He cleared his throat and began. “Amate spiritus obscure, te quaerimus, te oramus, nobiscum colloquere, aput nos circita.”

Dean looked up at the room, peeking over the edge of the book like a child peering around a pillow at a horror movie expecting something gross and terrifying to pop out at him. First glance showed him that the room was as empty as it had been before. He lowered the book and looked around carefully, trying to peer into the dark corners. “Are you here?” he asked those dark corners. The air felt charged, like static permeated every molecule of empty space around him, and Dean felt the hair on his arms stand on end. “Come on. I think you’re here.”

Nothing happened, but that continued presence making the back of his neck prickle and he glanced beside him at his steaming cup of coffee. Remembering his first encounter with the ghost, he picked it up and held it off to the side.

“I have a nice hot cup of black coffee here,” he said loudly to the empty room, “It would be such a shame if it suddenly spilled all over these custom-made pillows and stained the rich upholstery.” He began to tip the cup towards the sofa, the dark liquid sloshing close to the brim.

“Don’t you dare!” came the deep gritty voice from where the man in the trench coat had suddenly appeared on the other side of the low table.

“Christ!” Dean exclaimed, as he quickly put the coffee cup down on the table. Dean couldn’t believe that it had worked. “I think we need to talk,” he said, looking up at the man standing before him.

“I think you need to get out.”

“Okay, uh… Let’s try this. Do you notice anything strange lately?”

“It’s not exactly normal to have a dirty vagrant squatting your apartment, so there is that.”

Dean let the insult slide and tried again, “What do you do, when you’re not here?”

“If you think I’m going to leave you alone in my home, you’re wrong.” The man was clenching his fists at his sides and Dean suddenly felt the dire need to defuse the situation before the ghost went ballistic on his ass.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said, slowly standing up from the couch. “Let’s start over. I’m Dean Winchester.”

“I’m…” The blue eyes frowned a moment before scanning all around him, jumping from object to object like someone looking for something familiar to anchor themselves to. Dean found himself pitying him, it was getting clear that the man had no idea he wasn’t flesh and blood. “Castiel. I’m Castiel.”

Dean frowned, why was that familiar? He looked down at the coffee cup and saw again the childish hand painted designs around the colourful squiggly letters that spelled out the man’s name. “Wait. You had to read that. You don’t even remember your own name, do you?” he said as he took a step around the coffee table and towards the spirit that was looking less and less intimidating.

“Of course, I do,” he answered as he backed away.

“No, I really don’t think you do. What’s your last name?” Dean asked, cutting right into his next questions oblivious to the man’s sudden stoic silence as he moved in on him again. “Where do you work? How long have you been in San Francisco? Who are your parents?” With each question, the spirit seemed to back up and somehow, he looked like he was shrinking in his trench coat, a look of startled panic on his face. “Come on, Cas, admit it. You don’t remember a thing.”

“My name is Castiel,” he growled threateningly as the lights in the kitchen began to flicker and flare.

Dean looked up and around, “Why are you doing that with the lights?”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Okay, how ‘bout this? Do you remember anything… strange happen to you?”

“What do you mean strange?”

“You know… like dying!” Dean barked at him forcing him back another step.

“What are you talking about?” Castiel asked him, his eyes wide in panic and fear.

His fear was disarming, he was like a baby in a trench coat. Dean reined himself in a bit. He reached out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but it fell right through the man, like he was nothing more than a trick of light and air.

“Don’t touch me,” Castiel said jerking out of the way while Dean pulled back his hand like he’d been given a shock. He had almost forgotten that he was dealing with a ghost and not someone flesh and bone.

“Listen, I’m not gonna hurt you. I just want to help you move on.”

“I’m not dead,” Castiel threatened with another spat of fritzing lights.

“Look for the light!” Dean called out in sheer bravado, trying to ignore the fear and confusion brought on by the whole situation.

“There is no light. Have you lost your mind?”

“Walk into the light, Castiel!”

“I am not dead!” the man yelled, a terrifying glare lowered on Dean and lancing him right through the gut.

Dean looked down and a surreal shock went through him seeing what was not possible. He had backed the man up right into the dining room table, but instead of stopping him, or falling over, the wood stood intact and unmoved as Castiel’s upper body stood out from the center of it.

“Holy Hell,” Dean muttered as Castiel glanced down at himself.

“What is happening to me?” he uttered, all the anger drained away and leaving only a terrified whisper.

Dean looked up at him again and yelled, “You’re dead!” hoping that the table would drive the point home.

The anger flooded back in Castiel’s face and he moved forward and grabbed Dean’s shirt in his fist. Only, his hand went right through him too. “You missed,” Dean taunted him, crossing his arms over his chest in smug victory. Castiel drew back his arm and aimed his closed fist right at Dean’s head, but he didn’t even flinch when the fist, that normally would have jerked his head to the right, didn’t even stir the air as it went right through him again.

“Are you done?” Dean asked him feigning boredom.

With a purse of his lips Castiel raised his hand again and passed it right through Dean’s face. It felt so strange, almost like someone was stuffing his brain with ice cold, cotton candy. As it amplified though, it joined forces with his growing headache, and he back up out of arm’s reach, dodging as Castiel tried to jab at his head again. “Alright, that’s enough.” Castiel looked down at his hands and his confusion was palpable. “Listen, buddy, it’s not my fault you’re like this, alright? I just want you out of my house.”

“You get out!” Castiel yelled at him and suddenly he rushed Dean, as though he would push him right out of the window. Dean braced himself for a hit, but all he felt was that strange TV static fuzziness in his body as the spirit rushed right through him and disappeared out through the wall.

Heart pounding, Dean turned around and looked out, relief slow to take over the strangeness of it all. “Good riddance,” he said before turning around again and coming face to face with Castiel – a hard, determined look on his face.

“I am not leaving.”


	5. Chapter 5

Dean let the hot water pour over him and down the length of his body draining away with it the strain from the past couple of days. Though he had felt the momentary zeal of excitement from working at solving a mystery, he had quickly gone back to feeling the weariness and strain of the last few years weigh him down once more. He had turned to drink again and his brain cells, so fired up and ready a moment before, had gone back to being fuzzy and dulled.

He let the warmth beat gently onto his tired head and against his tense neck and he tried to relax into the feel of it. He could feel the hot touch of the pouring water gently soothe his tightened muscles as he allowed himself slowly to relax. Eventually, the hot water drained from the tank and turned cold, and he reluctantly turned the lever until it stopped pouring from the showerhead. He instantly felt the cooler air caress his damp skin making him shiver. Resigned to the fact that he could not hide in the shower forever, he drew back the curtain.

“Hello, Dean,” said Castiel.

“Son of a bitch!” Dean cried out feeling like his heart would jump out of his chest. He grabbed his nearby towel and wrapped it around his hips to cover himself up from Castiel’s discomfiting presence. “Ever heard of personal space? Come on!”

“You could leave,” Castiel informed him flatly.

“Or YOU could! Why are you tormenting me? You’re the dead guy!” Castiel didn’t respond, and didn’t leave. In frustration, Dean threw his arms in the air, sending water droplets flying. He pulled open the bathroom door as he called out, “Stay!” over his shoulder.

He quickly crossed the hall and slipped into the bedroom closing the door behind him. He leaned up against it, trying to regain his composure. His mouth was cotton dry, and his slowly pounding headache was coming back, the brief relief that the shower had afforded him, already for nought, and all he wanted was a drink. He straightened up and turned to go pick out clothes from the dresser but found himself nearly nose-to-nose with the trench coat wearing bane of his existence.

“Goddamnit!” Dean cried out, startled again. “Don’t you have something better to do than to give a guy a heart attack?”

“No.”

“Figures. Well, I ain’t into free peep shows, so just get the hell out so I can get dressed.” Dean ground his teeth while he glared at the dark-haired man, who simply met his stare with cool indifference. “Fine! You freaky pervert, if this is how you like to get your rocks off, enjoy.”

Dean walked around Castiel and pulled off the towel, finally able to dry off the remaining water droplets. Despite his affected casualness, he was feeling awkward and self-conscious, and he quickly slipped on a pair of black boxer-briefs to hide himself from view.

He finished dressing quickly but when he turned back around, the room was empty. How long had he been left alone? With a suspicious frown, he looked around, expecting him to be standing behind him, or in his blind spot, but there was no sign of him. He cautiously opened the bedroom door: maybe he was waiting on the other side of it.

The hallway was empty. Dean narrowed his eyes, what new game was this? He made his way down the hall towards the main room; eyes and ears at attention in case he decided to just jump out from behind the half-embedded timber beams or closed doors. He made it all the way into the kitchen, and still no sign of him. Maybe he had left after all. “Ha,” he muttered under his breath as he pulled open the fridge door in victory.

“Hello, Dean.”

“GAH!”

Castiel was sitting inside, ignoring the shelves running right through his incorporeal self. His head was level with the top shelf, and he glared at Dean critically when he reached in to grab himself a beer. Dean lost no time in swinging the door shut on the smug sonofabitch.

Castiel spent the rest of the day devising new ways to make sure Dean didn’t have a moment of peace and quiet. Dean was too stubborn to do anything but dig his heels in and show the insufferable dickwad how impervious he was to his childish tactics. Didn’t stop him having a mild heart attack though every time blue-eyes appeared out of thin air right where he least expected him to be.

“Hello, Dean,” was beginning to be two words he dreaded to hear in that nerve-grating voice. Dean began to fantasize about punching him right in his stupid face. Once his reflexes got the better of him and his fist ended up going right through Castiel’s head and into the solid wood paneling.

But nothing beat the fucking bees.

Dean had resigned himself to not getting up off the couch anymore. If he stayed in one place, Castiel couldn’t keep popping out at him when he least expected it. He had turned on the television and was channel flipping through evening sit-coms and dramas, sports casts and news reports. Nothing really caught his fancy while Castiel’s unwavering stare was focused on him. He had found himself a spot in one of the two armchairs that flanked the TV and so was constantly in his line of sight. His presence was like suspense in a horror film: the more nothing happened, the more Dean grew anxious that something would.

“There are over sixteen thousand known species of bees,” Castiel suddenly said just when Dean was starting to think of him as no more than an oddly shaped lamp.

“What?” Dean asked in complete and total confusion, forgetting for a moment that he was trying to ignore him.

Castiel nodded slowly, his intense stare still leveled on Dean, and he wondered at the man’s unshakable focus. “In seven biological families.”

“Dude, what are you talking about?”

“The smallest species of bee is the stingless bee – the workers measure less than two millimetres long.”

“Thanks, store that away with crap I didn’t need to know.”

“The largest bees are the female Megachile Pluto, they can measure up to 39 millimeters long.”

“Are you almost done with your third grade science presentation? I’d like to get back to—“

“The most common bee in the northern hemisphere is the Halictidae, or sweet bees. But they’re so small, most people mistake them for wasps or even flies.”

Dean let his head fall back against the sofa cushions. Castiel’s voice became an incessant drone. How much crap did the guy know about bees? He tried everything to drown him out, from ignoring him and focusing on the television, to increasing the volume. He even threw a pillow at him, but that proved to be as effective as the punch. Castiel continued to talk, and that deep scratch of his penetrated even the thickest wall of sound, creating this backdrop of noise like white static that was boring into Dean’s brain like a drill.

“The major behavioural difference between wasps and bees is what they feed their young…”

“Not all bees live in colonies…”

“Bees evolved from the same ancestors as wasps. Their eating habits differed…”

When the volume of the television could go no higher and finally Dean could almost not hear the thousand and one inane facts, he thought he had won. Then Castiel stood up from his armchair beside the television and sat directly in front of him on the edge of the wooden chest that was still overflowing with trash. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his intensely blue eyes focused and unwavering, holding Dean’s stare prisoner. He felt like he was being invaded by those eyes, they were all he could see. He could barely breathe.

“Bees can be found on every continent, except Antarctica, and in every habitat on the planet that has insect-pollinated…”

“ALRIGHT ENOUGH!” Dean burst out, hardly able to hear himself over the television’s sound and he turned it off, aiming the remote control right at Castiel’s face. A buzzing silence filled the room and for a moment it looked to Dean as though the remote had worked on both TV and annoying ghost. In the absence of sound, Dean’s brain filled with a fuzzy static buzzing and it took all he had in him to stop from trying to swap at the air around him as though the subject of Castiel’s dissertating was in fact swarming around him.

In the growing silence, and at this proximity, the blue-eyed stare was becoming more and more unnerving and Dean grabbed for the newspaper he had left on the sofa cushion beside him earlier. He shook it open and disappeared behind the printed pages. He attempted to concentrate on the article in front of him. Though he read the words, he could not string them together coherently: the longer the ghost’s silence permeated the room, the more Dean began to wonder if he was still there. And if he wasn’t, where had he gone? Slowly, Dean lowered the newspaper, his suspicions were validated when he saw the dark television screen, no Castiel to block his view. Startled, he looked to the left only to find him leaning over the back of the couch, his face barely a breath away from his ear.

“Apiculture has been practiced for millennia. Evidence of the cultivation of honey can be found in both Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece.”

Dean’s heart pounded in his chest once more and he startled right off the couch as he threw down the newspaper. “That’s it, buddy. You’re toast.”

Dean stomped out of the living room, grabbing his jacket and jamming his feet into his boots before slamming the apartment door shut behind him.

The light from the city filtered in and touched upon the furniture, the floor, the walls. The living room was empty. The apartment was empty. Silence filled the space and it was just an apartment once again.

~

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose as the tall cassocked scarecrow spritzed holy water at the exact spot two feet right of the intended target.

“He can’t even see me,” pointed out Castiel.

“A little to the left, Padre,” Dean said shaking his head.

“Oh! Sorry. Exorcisamus te…”

“You’re cleaning up all this water,” Castiel stated, then he walked off towards the kitchen and Dean dropped his arms in complete exasperation as the priest continued to splatter blindly at nothing.

“Ok, alright,” Dean said, gesturing for the holy shower to stop.

“That should do the trick, alright,” the priest, who looked like an overgrown weed at the end of a teenage growth spurt, said in his smooth Tennessee accent.

“It sure did,” Dean answered with a purse of his lips, “Good work, father—”

“Oh! Garth.”

“Right. Thank you. We’re done here.”

“Are you sure? Because I have some holy oil too if you want to…”

“No! no no… I think we showed him.”

Dean was glad to close the door on that nightmare.

~

Dean sat on the edge of the couch, elbows resting on his knees, face pressed into his hands.

“What are they doing?” Castiel’s voice asked from where he sat beside him on the red sofa. “They seem to have written on some paper strips. Oh! I wonder what they’re going to do with the lighters…”

“Shut up, please just shut up,” Dean mumbled through his hands.

“Who could have guessed that they would set those papers on fire? How fascinating.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Castiel,” he said without looking up but catching the scent of burning paper, knowing the jerk wasn’t even making it up.

“Where did you find these people?”

“Craigslist,” Dean answered with a groan.

He turned his head and looked at the mother-son duo. She was tiny in stature but had a commanding presence. On the phone she had practically bullied him into giving her his address not accepting no for an answer when he had called about the purification ritual she had advertised in her listing. The son was taller, but not much. He didn’t look like much, an older teen, maybe getting ready for college… definitely AP. He had that look. But maybe under that reedy exterior and flop of hair, he was a fierce fighting machine that could take down a moose. Currently though, he was busy setting his place on fire.

“They’re going to set off the smoke detector,” said Castiel flatly.

“Is everything under control there, Ms. Tran?” Dean called out to the woman a bare second before the strident sound of the smoke alarm filled the apartment and sent the two running out the door.

Dean let himself fall back against the sofa cushions and closed his eyes.

~

Dean frowned at the business card in his hand.

“This is a joke, right?” Castiel said, looking over his shoulder.

Dean cringed as he looked up towards the foursome huddled together like a pre-game pep talk. Did one of them seriously have a camera?

“Alright Facers… This is it, the big time. Not all of us will make it out alive, but we have a job to do.”

“Wait, what? Are you saying we could die? This is not what I signed up for when I agreed to do this, Harry!”

“Damnit, Maggie! Don’t ruin this for me,”

“Look alive, guys – it’s Face Time! On three… One, two, three, ghoooooost—”

“—facers,” the four whispered, their hands in front of their faces like some boyband move from the nineties.

“Nice! Professional… Top notch, Dean.”

Dean was about to make a snarky response when one of the four weirdos walked up to him while the rest dispersed all over the apartment with gadgets that blinked little lights and emitted strange whirring sounds in some strange language only they could understand. The one holding the camera had followed who looked to be the leader and was now aiming his lens right at Dean.

“Hi, Dave, can we have a word please?”

“It’s Dean,” he informed him, glaring at the camera man.

“No, I’m Ed.” Dean blinked a few times, bringing his attention back to who was talking to him, trying hard to wrap his head around just how much of an idiot he was dealing with. “Listen, Dave,” he continued, turning Dean away from the group’s activities by putting a hand on his upper arm. It didn’t stop the one holding the camera from coming in closer, filming them, and Dean kept a suspicious eye on him. “Have you experienced any cold spots?”

Dean turned and startled as he realized the idiot was standing in the same spot as Castiel, their images superimposed resulting in a strange double vision. “Uh… Do you feel a cold spot right now?”

“Actually, I’m quite comfortable, thank you,” the one called Ed answered.

“This is ridiculous,” Castiel said, walking away and making a point of passing through every single device-holding paranormal investigator, making their equipment go haywire and causing an excited commotion of colliding bodies and exclaimed, “Oh my god!”s and “Did you see that?” The babble and rush of excited energy that ensued was giving Dean a headache as he watched the whole thing in quiet contemplation of how strange his life had become since moving into the damned apartment.

Eventually, Dean managed to round up the frazzled gaggle of birdbrained twits and shepherded them out the door, which he was overjoyed to close in the cameraman’s face. The resulting crunch of shattering electronics and accompanying curse words filled him with intense satisfaction.

~

Dean stood off to the side of the bow window seat area, his back to the apartment, as he looked down on the mop of long brown hair bending over the coffee table, setting up an array of oddities: pendulums and crystals in bowls, decks of cards and, of all things, a Ouija board.

“Do those things really work?” he asked him.

Sam from the bookstore straightened up and rubbed his hands together as he looked around, checking his set up. “Spirit boards can be used to communicate with those who are caught in the veil between worlds; between being alive and moving on.”

“Dude, communication is not his problem,” he reminded him with a scoff.

“Come on, Dean. He can’t see me either,” Castiel said, sounding discouraged as he walked up beside Sam and waved his hand in his face. “For some horrible, cosmic joke of a reason, only you can.”

The crystal pendulum on the table suddenly spun in the air without anything touching it and Sam stiffened, his eyes fixed on it. “He’s here,” he said completely seriously.

“Yeah, I know he is, he’s standing right there.” Dean gestured towards the inescapable shape of the beige trench coat. He pursed his lips and ground his teeth, bracing himself for another failed wannabe to try to screw him over.

“Let’s get started then,” Sam answered, completely seriously. He hunched forward over the table and put his fingertips on the tear shaped pointer with the domed window in its centre.

“This is ridiculous. You and I both know I can’t touch that. I can’t touch anything.”

“Just do the thing, Cas.”

Castiel glared at Dean. Sam’s eyes flicked up towards him also, before going back to the board.

“He’ll just move the pointer himself if you wait long enough.”

“I feel like I’m at a slumber party,” Dean mumbled with a shake of his head.

“I guess he doesn’t want to talk to me, huh?” Sam said from the couch.

“Psychic, this one,” said the ghost with a roll of his eyes.

The crystal on the pendulum swung side-to-side and Sam’s eyes were drawn to it again thoughtfully. “Let’s try something else then.”

He picked up a wooden box stained black with odd symbols painted on it in white. The inside of the box was lined in dark blue satin and nestled in it was a large deck of cards. For a second, Dean thought they were going to play poker, but when Sam started shuffling them in his hands, his long fingers having no trouble handling the oversized deck, he saw that they weren’t typical playing cards. They were as black as their box, and though they looked unmarked by scuffs or shorn corners, they felt old to Dean as they flowed from one of Sam’s hands to the other.

“What will those do,” Castiel grumbled, “read my fortune?”

“What are those?” Dean asked, intrigue overcoming some of his reservations.

“They are oracle cards. They can be used to tune in to certain energies and vibrations that the human senses can’t necessarily perceive. I got them off a Salem witch who came to the shop once.”

“What’s with the chicken scratches on the box?”

“Those are wards. These cards can be very powerful. I keep them in the box to avoid… issues.”

“This is absurd,” Castiel said suddenly, drawing Dean’s attention back to him. He was looking angry, as he glared at Sam beside him. “Parlour tricks, Dean! Witches, crystals, wards? He’s just playing us. He doesn’t know how to help me any more than the other side show acts you had traipse through here.” He was upset, and the more upset he got, the more that pendulum swung in wild circles. The lights started to flicker around them as Castiel’s fists closed tightly. He swung a hand towards the cards and though Dean expected it to go right through, like his hands always did, a card flew out mid-shuffle like it had be knocked out of Sam’s hands.

“He’s kind of hostile, isn’t he?” Sam said calmly even as he swallowed visibly and glanced around.

Dean was fixated on the scene in front of him like he was watching the most realistic 3-D movie ever made. This was some next level weird. Castiel huffed, his composure in hand again. He turned to leave the room mumbling, “The guy can’t hold onto his cards and I’m labeled hostile?”

Sam bent to pick up the card where it had landed face down on the ground. He flipped it over and brought it to the table. The card face was as dark as the back, but it had a strange symbol drawn on it in a dark red like dried blood. It was a diamond with an arrow pointing straight out of the bottom of it with a swervy 5 drawn through it. Sam tapped the card with a finger and looked up at Dean. “This card represents an Unwanted Visitor.”

Castiel stopped and turned back fixing the man on the window seat with renewed attention while Dean’s eyebrows scaled his forehead. “What else do the cards say?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Sam picked the card from the top of the deck and flipped it onto the table, placing it beside the first. This one had a different symbol painted in grey ink. “You should move, man.”

“What?”

“He might not be crazy after all,” Castiel said smugly.

“You shut up!” Dean pointed his finger at Castiel before turning back to Sam, “What do you mean move? He’s the one who should go.”

“This spirit is not gonna let up.” Sam tapped the new card. “That’s the sigil for determination. He’s not going to change his mind.”

“You should definitely listen to him.”

“I’m not moving!” Dean yelled, aiming his yelling at Castiel. On the couch, Sam had stopped moving and was just watching, with raised eyebrows, the part of the drama he could follow. Dean turned his attention back to him and saw the look of surprised disbelief on the guy’s face. “Whatever, man. Screw you.”

Dean stomped off towards the kitchen to try to cool off. He leaned his hands against the island counter, his shoulders hunched. Every muscle in his back and arms was tense from trying to control the swell of anger that had come out of seemingly nowhere. It took him a moment to realize that Sam had followed him and was back to shuffling the deck of oracle cards slowly as he leaned back against the main counter beside the fridge.

“Move out? That can’t be the solution. Help me out, here.” Sam looked at him, his expression unreadable. “Can’t you… Can’t you talk to him? Tell him to… pass on or something?”

“I can hear you, you know,” Castiel said, suddenly standing in the kitchen with them.

“I’m not talking to you right now,” Dean said through gritted teeth and glaring at him. “If you’d just go into the light, we wouldn’t be in this damned mess.”

“What light?” Castiel asked, his deep grit sounding just as exasperated as Dean felt. “There is no light!”

Sam quietly pulled a card from the deck and glanced at it. His eyebrows shot up in surprise and he looked back up at Dean who was arguing fiercely with the empty space in the kitchen. He put the card back in the deck thoughtfully, then pulled the top card. “I don’t think I can help you with your ghost,” he declared, staring at the new card.

Dean turned away from the argument quickly. “What? Why not?”

“I don’t think your guy is dead.” He showed Dean the card as he explained. “That means life. Vibrant energy. And this one,” he had pulled another card and showed Dean who looked down at the lines and drawings unable to see their meaning himself, “is bonded. There’s something keeping him here, and it’s strong, whatever it is.”

Dean stared at the cards feeling betrayed and angry and hopeless all at once. “No! That can’t be it! That’s crap!”

Sam shuffled the deck again and pulled the top card again. His face fell as he looked at it. He glanced up at Dean with deep sadness, and that look. Dean thought he would never have to deal with that look ever again, and here it was, like this stranger knew all his secrets. His anger swelled and he thought he would choke on it.

“You’re going to have to deal with this.”

“I’m trying to deal with it, but I can’t get him to leave!” he yelled, flailing his arm towards where Castiel was standing.

Sam shook his head and pulled another card. “Not your ghost, Dean.” Dean stiffened hearing his name used so familiarly by the stranger. He looked at the card as Sam put it down on the counter. It showed two circles linked together, one was faded and barely there and the other was scuffed and broken. “You have to let this one go. It’s killing you.”

“Oh!” suddenly exclaimed Castiel who had been watching the whole thing. “Is that why you’re such a useless slob? Some girl left you?” Castiel’s words cut Dean deeply and he flinched before turning his choking anger on him.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Dean’s jaw was twitching as he ground his teeth together, trying to maintain his self-control but feeling it slip with every grating syllable the black-haired man uttered.

“What’s wrong? Don’t like talking about your failures? She was tired of your laziness, I bet.”

“Shut up,” Dean whispered dangerously with a curl of his lips.

“No one wants to live with a freeloading slob. You can’t blame her dropping you out of her life. I actually applaud her for it!”

“Shut up! You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

Castiel moved in on him slowly. Dean turned his head away, his feelings boiling and bubbling in his stomach ready to erupt. “What’s wrong? You can say and do whatever you want to get rid of me, but you can’t handle a little truth thrown your way? The only downside I see to her leaving is that you ended up in MY apartment.”

“To Hell with you!” Dean stormed out of the room and disappeared into the hallway beyond, the sound of the door slamming behind him like a clap of thunder. The paintings and pictures on the walls shook in their frames.

Castiel stood in the kitchen watching the spot where Dean had disappeared and wondered why he felt so empty inside.

“I really don’t know what you’re trying to prove… but whatever you said to him…,” Sam spoke to the room, drawing Castiel’s attention to him as he flipped the card in his hand so it would be visible to someone standing nearby; visible to him. The card had a skull printed on it and Castiel frowned. “If I were you, I’d show a little more respect for the dead.”

Sam picked up his cards and walked back to the living room, leaving Castiel standing alone in the kitchen.


	6. Chapter 6

The scattering of pinprick lights along the streets lay spread out all around like a picnic blanket made of stardust spread out from the shore to the wooded hills rolling upwards into the blacked-out heavens. In the distance, the Golden Gate Bridge stretched from shore to shore like a string of miniature suns. Shooting stars made their way up and down the various streets as they traveled one path or another and disappeared in the distance. Beyond the edge of the city shoreline and the many piers, it was pure darkness, as though nothing lay beyond, no spark of life, just a gaping hole the city was forever on the edge of falling into.

Standing in the center of the roof, Castiel scanned the view before him, touched by the peace and quiet afforded him by the surrounding spectacle. The roof itself was dark, the residential streetlamps not reaching up as tall as the building. Dean stood leaning forward over the parapet and gazing off into the shimmering distance, himself wrapped in both the shadows of the roof top, and those within himself. Castiel could see the weariness in his face, the numb mask he usually wore not necessary on the dark and solitary roof.

Castiel thought of how best to approach him and suddenly he was standing stiffly beside him.

“If you say, “Hello, Dean,” I swear to God, I will throw you off this roof.” His voice was rough and tight, like his throat was swollen by emotion.

Castiel frowned, stopping himself from asking him how he thought he would do that considering his current disembodied state, but he thought better of it, accepting that though physically it may be impossible, the desire to do it was genuine enough to give him pause. “Okay,” he finally said, turning away from Dean to look at the view once more.

Beside him Dean sighed. “Can’t you just leave me alone?” he asked, his tone quiet, the anger from before sounding more like tired desperation now.

“I’m sorry.” He glanced to the side to steal a look at the man’s face to better gauge his mood, but his features had gone blank once more.

Dean dropped his head forward closing his eyes. “Seriously, man. Just… go away.”

Castiel could almost feel the waves of sadness swelling out of him and permeating the evening air, making it heavy with his loss. For himself, he could feel his remorse begging to be acknowledged by the one he had hurt with his insensitivity. At a loss, Castiel turned back to look at the distant hills far behind them. “I got this place for the roof. I was going to turn it into a garden… or something.” Castiel let the words drift away as he searched his muddled mind for some clue. It was becoming more and more evident that he could not remember much of anything about who he was before the man had so suddenly appeared in the apartment.

“Swear to God, Cas,” Dean said gruffly, “if you start talking about bees again…”

“I’m not.” Castiel tried to ignore his annoyance at Dean’s use of a shortened version of his name again. Was it so hard to say Castiel? He glanced at Dean again. His hand was covering his face and rubbing at his forehead like he had a headache. “You know, Dean, most people who deal with loss, find it helpful to talk about it.”

Dean slammed his hands down on the parapet and pushed himself away, straightening up suddenly. His face was twisted in a snarl so fierce, Castiel knew before he opened his mouth that he would be shouting. “I don’t want to talk about it!”

“Anger works too,” Castiel said, not taking his eyes off the man as he shook his head and looked back out and he seemed deflated somehow, smaller.

“What the hell do you know about it?” Dean grumbled.

Castiel didn’t respond and the silence stretched and grew, wrapping them in loneliness. He went over the argument they had had before, trying to figure out how he could make things better. He realized that he really didn’t know much of anything about the man who lived in his apartment. “Who was he talking about? With the cards…?” he asked with a frown, not expecting him to answer, but needing to chase away the uncomfortable silence.

“Jo,” Dean said, clearing the cracking in his voice, “Her name was Jo. She was my wife.”

Castiel didn’t have the chance to express his condolences. In an explosive huff, Dean turned around and headed straight for the staircase that would lead him back inside the apartment and away from him. Castiel could feel Dean’s pain, camouflaged as it was under a layer of anger. He turned back around to look beyond at the muffled city’s beauty, and he could not feel the victory at Dean’s lack of presence. Except for the guilt starting to eat away at his gut, he could only feel numb and tired and fuzzy. It felt like he was slowly slipping away from himself as his sense of self became more and more vague and out of reach.

It was barely a blink, no more than a moment and a single thought: he hoped Dean was alright. Disoriented Castiel found himself in a crowded room with noise and people crammed into every available space, breathing every molecule of oxygen and leaving none for him. People stood and walked right through him on their way to the door and it felt like it had felt when he had moved around the room with those gadget holding experts: nothing. Though he had set off their equipment, they had been no more than specters, wisps of air coloured in people and clothes and that’s how these strangers now surrounding him and moving through him felt. They were on different planes of reality, he could see them, but he remained unseen, untouched and alone.

Why was he here? Another couple stood from where they were sitting at the bar and moved off towards another part of the crowded place. Castiel spied a familiar shape leaning against the bar and talking with a pretty, young brunette. In his hand, was a nearly empty tumbler. Castiel barely cared that there was no way that the man had left the apartment, found a bar and had already finished at least one drink in the space of a single blink… he simply put it out of his mind as he approached him.

The brunette picked up her clutch and walked away, and Castiel moved to occupy the spot. Seeing him, Dean turned back towards his drink and picked up the glass, bringing it to his lips. “Don’t, Dean. This is not going to help.”

“How would you know? Just go away. Go haunt that damned apartment now that you finally got me out of it.”

With a jerk of his head, the bottom of the glass was drained, and he clunked it back down to the wooden counter, gesturing to the man behind the bar for a refill. Dean’s head bobbled on his shoulders and Castiel took a closer look at him. “You’re inebriated.”

“Give the man a prize!” Dean called out loudly, drawing the disapproving stares of nearby patrons. Castiel looked around, the atmosphere in the place not conducive to having a discussion with an invisible person – it was loud, hot and overly crowded. People were already glancing at Dean like he had some form of transmittable madness they needed to be wary of.

“You should go home, Dean. Sleep this off. Or have a coffee and we can talk. This is not a healthy way for you to deal with—”

“Hey man!” Dean yelled at the barman, effectively stopping Castiel from finishing his suggestion, “Make it a double this time!”

“I’m trying to help you—”

“Yeah? Who asked you, huh?”

The bartender put the drink down in front of Dean and walked away with the empty glass. Dean turned it slowly, watching the light shine through the amber liquid. Castiel was getting irritated with his attitude. He could feel his earlier frustration trying to deal with Dean’s attempts to expel him from his own home rising in him again. “If it’s a hangover you want, I can start that for you right now.”

“Oh? What, with your incessant droning?”

With a determined set of his jaw and a frown in place, Castiel raised his hand and stuck it through Dean’s head. His reaction was instant as he stood up from his stool swatting at him like he could bat away his hand. Castiel jabbed at him again, ignoring the numb tingle in his arm as it passed right through Dean again.

“Ah! Stop that!”

Dean managed to dodge the subsequent attempts and they both stopped as they heard a woman saying Dean’s name. Castiel turned to look at the newcomer. She was young and pretty, with long locks of vivid red hair and concerned brown eyes. She put her hand on Dean’s shoulder and he visibly flinched at the touch.

“You doing alright, Dean?”

“Good God, do you know all the girls in the bar?”

Dean narrowed his eyes at him. “Shut up, dumbass. She’s my friend.”

He settled back down onto his stool, the woman sitting down beside him. Castiel went around Dean and put himself between them. “Listen to me. None of this is healthy. Whatever comfort you feel in drinking alcohol and sleeping with… loose women, it’s fleeting. You need to talk.”

“I didn’t ask you to come here and ruin my life!”

“Uh… Okay… Harsh,” said the girl looking offended, “And actually, yeah you did. You called me remember?”

“Not you, Charlie,” Dean said, his face contorted in confusion. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

He raised the glass to his lips and took a sip. Castiel shook his head.

“Are you feeling alright, Dean?”

“I’m great,” he answered her with a tense smile.

“Don’t lie to yourself,” Castiel said, moving out of the way. “You can’t keep drinking your feelings away.”

“Watch me,” Dean said, and he took another swallow of his poison, his face stretched in a wince as it undoubtedly burned down to his stomach.

“You might want to slow down a little,” Charlie said, observing him. “How are you doing with those hallucinations?”

Castiel turned towards her with a frown.

“Oh! That was nothing,” Dean answered.

“You need help, Dean,” Castiel tried to say again, but he turned to him and shushed him before he could get any further.

“Just a little lack of sleep,” he said, turning back to look at Charlie whose eyebrows were lost in her hairline her eyes were so wide.

“A-huh. And are you getting any?”

“Are you offering?” Dean leaned in towards her, leering at her through half-lidded eyes.

“Sleep, Dean. Are you getting any sleep?”

“You’re no fun.” He took another sip of his drink and Castiel wanted nothing more than to grab it out of his hand and drag him out of the bar. He reached for the glass, and Dean jerked it away from him before answering. “Yeah, I’m sleeping. A good eight hours most nights.”

Castiel scoffed, “Try twelve.”

Dean turned to glare at him again, “Nine tops.”

“Do you even realize?” Castiel asked him.

“Knock it off!” Dean said in an angry whisper as he raised the glass to his lips again.

“Put that down,” Castiel ordered him.

“I don’t think so,” he said, glaring right at Castiel, making Charlie turn to look behind her to see what Dean was staring at. He brought the glass back to his lips.

“Last warning,” Castiel growled.

“What’re you going to do about it, ghost boy?”

Frustration turning to impulsive anger, Castiel moved forward to stand where Dean was without a thought for what to do beyond that. The moment he did, he felt a strange resistance, not at all like when he had moved through objects, walls and other people even. It was like he had suddenly found himself in a constraining, ill-fitting wetsuit with a mind of its own. He could feel the resistance of Dean’s body and mind fighting his presence. His arm through Dean’s arm like a sleeve, he applied his whole will to make him put the glass with the remaining alcohol back down on the bar.

“Son of a bitch!” Dean choked out and it felt like the other voice bounced around inside Castiel and was forced out his own mouth.

The hand holding the glass jerked to the right again like he was trying to get it away from him and Castiel worked to open each of Dean’s fingers to release it. Dean’s strength surprised him as he resisted and jerked the glass back to the left, his fingers grasping it harder than ever. He tried to bring his mouth to the glass, and Castiel could feel Dean’s determination to drink, if only to spite him. Castiel doubled his efforts and managed to make Dean stand away from where he had been sitting, his legs kicking out like a puppet on a string with an inexperienced master. Dean turned around, wrenching himself back towards the bar where he wrapped both his hands around the glass tightly even as his legs worked to pull him away.

“Dean! This is seriously not cool, man. Knock it off!” Charlie yelled, punching their shoulder and Castiel felt it like a faint tap, Dean’s skin a buffer but also a conductor for the touch. He had to get Dean out of that bar. With a cry that was matched by Dean as they worked against each other, Castiel pulled back to straighten him up and Dean dragged the glass along with him. A sudden turn and jerk, and the contents of the glass spilled all over Charlie who cried out, grabbing at her wet shirt before slapping them hard.

The hit seemed to surprise Dean and for a moment he stopped struggling and Castiel made to pull the arm still holding the now empty glass away from the bar. Dean held on, and he had to shake the glass loose.

“I’m so sorry, Charlie!” Dean said, his voice falling into the unnatural quiet the stopped conversations had created in the bar. The sound of the band playing in the other room was the only noise left as everyone watched them warily, agog.

“Let’s go,” Castiel told him and kicking his legs out one after the other, he pried Dean away and out the heavy door.

They stumbled down the two steps and Castiel tore himself back out of Dean’s meatsuit, standing straight beside him while he fell to his knees on the sidewalk. Castiel’s whole body felt like ants were marching all over his skin and he tried to shake it away, even as he realized that he hadn’t been that aware of his body in a very long time. He stared at his hand and then down at himself as if it would hold some answer, some reason for the sudden change. But then, Dean was back on his feet and his hand reached towards Castiel making him flinch back reflexively as he aimed to grip his shirt in his fist. Dean’s hand swept right through him though and he turned and punched at the air instead.

“What the hell, man?” he growled, moving in on him again. “You don’t just jump into a guy like that! You were inside me!” Castiel flinched and Dean drew himself up straight again, standing stiffly. “Ah!” Dean yelled and tore at his hair before turning around and stomping off across the street.

Castiel’s mind was abuzz with thoughts and emotions that felt alien to him, glimpses of memories he couldn’t remember experiencing and a yearning he had never felt before. He looked up to where Dean had gone, and suddenly he was sitting on a park bench looking out at the lamps illuminating the paths that criss-crossed through the trees and lawn.

“Jesus Christ!” Dean exclaimed from next to him as he startled.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me, Dean.” He could feel the confusion growing inside of him as more and more he realized that whatever it was that had caused him to be this way… it couldn’t last forever. He had been so determined to get rid of Dean, he hadn’t really thought beyond what would happen if he succeeded. He couldn’t even remember who he was, or what kind of life he had before now. No one could see him or talk with him. He couldn’t do something as simple as hold a book or turn off a light. The more he thought about all this, the more the feeling of utter helplessness threatened to overwhelm him, and he stared off into the distance, paralysis setting in.

“Why are you still here?” Dean grumbled angrily at him.

“I… I have no idea,” he turned to look at Dean who’s face went from anger, to surprise and then quickly reverted back to his more usual indifference. Castiel frowned. “Why are you the only one who can see me?”

Dean shifted uncomfortably, “I think it’s pretty obvious. It’s ‘cause I’m cursed. Can’t you just leave me alone? Why do you have to ghost stalk me now? You got your apartment like you wanted, but instead you’re here.”

Castiel looked away, back out at the quiet park and he thought about the apartment and everything he had hoped to do when… but… there was nothing. He couldn’t remember what colour the walls were, or the feel of his own bed. It was like the rest of his life: just a blur. “I don’t know,” he told Dean, “It’s like… when I’m not with you. It’s like I don’t exist.” Fear crept into his thoughts and he felt cold as the idea weighed him down. “Maybe I am dead.”

Dean shifted on the bench and leaned over, his face moving into Castiel’s line of sight as he peered up at him. Castiel could see something flicker momentarily on his face, was it concern? Empathy? But it disappeared as he straightened back up and leaned back on the park bench. Castiel turned to look at him and he rolled his green eyes, darkened by the shadows around them, but still clear in the lighting of the nearby lamppost.

“Come on, now. Look, I’m sorry I said you were dead. Maybe you’re not dead. Maybe you’re like un…dead.”

The fear and sadness momentarily disappeared as Castiel sneered at him, a little disgusted. “What?”

“I’m not good at this stuff, okay?” Dean said, defensively. “What do you want me to say?”

Castiel pondered this for a moment but couldn’t come up with anything himself. What in the world could comfort someone who thought they were dead and who was now a disembodied spirit roaming the Earth unseen and unheard? “I still don’t know anything about who I am, or was, or… If I could just remember. Maybe it would explain… all of this.” He paused looking up at the dark sky in thought. “But I can’t do it alone.”

“Oh no! Don’t look at me, bud. You’ve been nothing but a curse on my life from the moment you popped into my space. Like hell am I going to help you now! Are you kidding me?”

With a huff, Castiel shook off the melancholy of his self-pity and he grew unshakably certain that Dean would help him, even if he had to force him to do it.

“The way I see it, Dean, you have two choices. One, you can choose to believe that you happened to meet someone, granted unconventionally, who needs your help.”

“Yeah… and what’s option two?”

“The only other option is that you’ve gone insane and that you are, right now, sitting on a park bench talking to yourself.”

Dean turned his head suddenly, like he was worried someone walking by would see him. Slowly, he turned back to look at Castiel, his eyes moving up and down his body and scouring his face as though he was trying to decide if he was real or not. Finally, with a resigned sigh, he said that he preferred option one.

Castiel nodded at him, feeling almost feverish with purpose and direction. “Good,” he said, “Let’s find out who I am.”


	7. Chapter 7

The next day dawned grey and foggy but by the time Dean woke from his drunken stupor it was well past noon and though the sun had not managed to pierce through the cloud cover, the fog had dissipated. Castiel sat silently, perched on the edge of the bed waiting for Dean to regain some form of coherent consciousness. He stared quietly out the window for lack of anything else that he could do, and he tried to think of the different places where they might go to get information about him. To his frustration though, his mind felt slow and sluggish and would not give him any insights and so he sat, and he watched, and he waited.

Dean blinked his eyes open, wincing in the brightness of the overcast day and Castiel turned towards him. He rolled slightly, a groan escaping his barely parted lips as he jerked his jean-clad hips, pulling at the stiff fabric that was twisted uncomfortably around his legs. Castiel watched as he opened his eyelids and the green irises became visible. They quickly locked onto him and Dean’s whole body jack-knifed into a sitting position. He let out a startled curse and then let his head fall back onto the pillow with another groan.

“Damnit, Cas! I thought we were done with this.”

“Apologies, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Were you sitting there all night?”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing? Just watching me sleep? ‘Cause that’s creepy!”

“Mostly, I watched the world out there,” he turned to look back out the window, “There is so much life passing by every second of every minute…”

“Yeah, I know, and I’m just wasting all of it ‘cause I’m a lazy slob. I heard you last night.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

Castiel made eye contact with Dean, willing him to believe that he truly was sorry for how he had behaved before. Dean looked away; his body language uncomfortable as he sat up on the side of the bed opposite from him. “Alright, fine. But can you get out of here? I need to shower and get dressed and if it’s alright with you, I’d like to do that alone.”

“Of course,” Castiel said standing up. For a moment he felt unsure and lost, his mind as foggy as the San Francisco morning had been, but then he turned towards the bedroom door and walked out into the hallway beyond. He stopped a little beyond the bathroom door, and looked out through the entrance to the dining area towards the bay window. He wasn’t aware of time passing, but suddenly Dean was talking to him, coming up behind him with fresh clothes on his back and still damp hair from his shower. Castiel frowned.

“Alright,” Dean was saying, “I was thinking we can start with your neighbours. See if you were friendly with any of them.” Castiel turned to look at him and Dean stopped, in the process of adjusting his shirt collar. “What’s wrong? Bad idea?”

Castiel looked away, confused, “No. It’s a good idea.”

Dean frowned at him a moment, just watching him. “Alright, then. Let’s go. Faster we’re done with this, the faster I can get back to doing nothing.”

Dean’s strategy was to start at the bottom and make their way back to the top. The superintendent wasn’t home when Dean knocked on his door, so they moved on to the next ground floor apartment. A tall man, though not as tall as the man with the cards, answered. He had a trim russet beard and deep-set, steel blue eyes. When he spoke, he had a quiet, almost soothing voice with a smooth Cajun accent. “What can I do for ya?” he asked, leaning his wide frame against the door jab.

“Uh, hi. I just moved in on the top floor. I was wondering, if you know anything about the guy who lived there before me.”

“Let’s see. The top floor?”

“Yeah, um… blue eyes? Black hair?”

“Can’t say it rings a bell. Sorry.”

“Thanks, sorry to disturb you.”

“You take care now,” the man said closing the door and they made their way to the next apartment.

“I know he didn’t know you, but did he seem at all familiar?” Dean asked Castiel, as they moved on to the next apartment and waited for the tenant to open the door.

“I’m sorry Dean, no.”

“Figures you were a hermit. Let’s hope someone remembers you.”

Castiel didn’t answer, keeping his own uncertainty to himself. The next person to open their door was a woman: middle-aged, ash-brown locks from a bottle and brown eyes that looked at her visitor suspiciously at first, but warmed up quickly enough when Dean explained the reason for his visit.

“Pretty sure that apartment was vacant,” she informed them. “But you’re more than welcome to drop in any time. I make a mean roadhouse chili.”

Dean’s smile lit up his face and Castiel was mesmerized by the difference between his usual sullen, brooding looks and this bright and cheerful expression he now wore. He was downright charming.

“Cas, not for nothing,” Dean started, pulling Castiel back to the here and now, “but the last person who looked at me like that… I got laid.”

Castiel frowned at him, but before he could say anything, Dean raised his fist and knocked on the next door. When had they left the other one? Almost immediately, they heard the bolt slide free in a sharp clunk. The man didn’t open his door completely, though, leaving the chain latch on and glaring at Dean through the crack sizing him up from toes to scalp. “I’m not telling you anything unless you got a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, son.” And the door was slammed closed.

Dean started laughing and Castiel frowned. “I fail to see what’s funny about this.”

“Oh, it’s not. It’s really not… I was just thinking that it’s a good thing the apartment has a great view, ‘cause the neighbours suck.”

Dean knocked on the next door, catching his breath, a smile lingering on his face. Castiel looked away, not wanting to be accused of staring again, and he was overwhelmed once more by that feeling of unfamiliarity; he could not remember anything particular about the building or the people who lived there, just like they couldn’t remember him. “It’s like I was a ghost before I was dead.”

Dean’s smile wavered as Castiel turned back towards him and he looked like he was going to say something, but then the door opened and Dean’s attention was completely occupied by the woman standing in the doorway. Dean’s eyebrows had jumped up his forehead momentarily, but quickly returned to a less surprised position. Castiel’s eyebrows remained in a frown as he took in the neighbour’s appearance. She was in her mid to late twenties, as far as he could tell, long strawberry blonde hair, stormy eyes and full lips and very pretty. From the way Dean had shifting his posture, he could tell he thought so too. Castiel turned his attention back to her as Dean introduced himself.

“She seems familiar,” Castiel said, fully aware that Dean would not be able to acknowledge what he said while she was present; although he did momentarily shift his way… or maybe he was just adjusting his stance again.

“I’m Dean Winchester. I just moved in, uh, upstairs.” He gestured behind him towards where the top floor apartments were.

“Oh, right. I’ve been meaning to drop in and see who was on top of me.” She had a slightly smoky voice, low and seductive like a 50’s lounge singer.

Dean’s eyebrows shot up again and he licked his lips absently. Castiel rolled his eyes. “She’s not exactly subtle,” he said, taking note of her posture and of her needlessly low neckline and exposed cleavage before shaking his head. Her eyes were moving all over Dean, lingering on certain parts of his anatomy, like his plump lips, the splash of freckles across his nose, the long dark lashes around his eyes, his wide shoulders, his long legs, his… Castiel looked away again.

“Right,” Dean said with a quirk of his lips as he leaned in slightly.

“I’m Lydia. I was just about to have some dessert. Would you like some?”

“Absolutely no preliminaries… She doesn’t even know you and she’s ready to jump you.”

“Hmm… What’s on the menu?” Dean rumbled low and slow.

“You look like a man who enjoys pie.”

“I’m going to throw up,” said Castiel looking away from the display of excess hormones.

“Maybe later,” answered Dean, his voice back to his more regular tone. “I was actually curious about the previous tenant in nine. Do you remember him at all? About yea tall, rugged, big blue eyes?” Dean smiled charmingly again.

_Rugged?_ Castiel thought.

“Oh, yeah, I remember him.” A shimmer of hope ran through Castiel and he leaned in towards her expectantly. Maybe, even with the excessive flirting, they had been friends. “But he was kind of a loner. Anti-social, you know? Like a cat-lady,” she suddenly added with a chuckle, “except without the cats.”

“Also, not a lady,” Castiel said, narrowing his eyes, the momentary glimmer of hope instantly snuffed out, while Dean laughed quietly. Clearly, they had not been friends. “Let’s just go.”

A grin plastered on his face, Dean thanked Lydia who gave him a wink and blew him a kiss before closing the door.

“Goddamn!” exclaimed Dean as he turned around to head up the stairs.

“Really, Dean?”

“What? You know how hard it is to turn down a silver platter like that? Besides, that woman is a nine. Smokin’.”

“Are you done?”

They drew up to the apartment door and Dean started patting down his pockets for his key. “Oh, come on, man! If she came onto you like that, you probably took her up on the offer, you just don’t remember.”

“Somehow, I doubt that very much.”

“Whatever,” Dean patted his pockets again, frowning. “Where did I put the key?”

“There’s a spare under the extinguisher,” Castiel said, gesturing towards the medium sized fire extinguisher set on a shelf built into the wall.

Dean raised one of his eyebrows at him, then walked over to the corner and retrieved the key. He opened the door and Castiel followed him into the apartment.

“Oh, and you’re not coming with me anymore,” Dean suddenly declared, walking through to the next room and straight into the kitchen.

“Why not?” Castiel asked, feeling hurt.

“I can barely focus when you’re around. You start talking and it’s like someone jammed an AM radio in my head.”

“But, Dean, something might jog my memory. I remembered her, vaguely.”

“Yeah?” Dean reached into the refrigerator for a bottle of beer. “So, tell me. What was she like?” he asked him as he opened one of the drawers and rummaged around in it.

“I don’t understand your interest. It’s clear she sleeps with all the men she meets.”

“Exactly! You totally c-blocked me, man. I could be getting laid right now.”

Castiel rolled his eyes. He felt that pang again, like he had food poisoning, only he hadn’t eaten anything on account of him being… not all there. “What’s stopping you? Get it out of your system and we can get back to figuring out who the hell I am.” Dean stopped his foraging and turned, giving him a calculating look that he did not appreciate.

“You can’t tell me that you weren’t at least tempted to bang her. What are you a monk?”

“No. She’s not my type.” Castiel could not look at him and he became entranced with his shoe.

“She’s everybody’s type, that’s the point,” Dean pressed on.

Feeling judged and inadequate, Castiel got angry and he leveled his stare on Dean, “Not mine,” he said pointedly. With a barely noticeable twitch of his eyebrows, Dean gave him a quick once over like he was seeing him for the first time. Then, he looked away, going back to his rifling through another drawer. “It’s in the far drawer. Top.”

Dean turned to look at him still hunched over the counter, but then he moved over to the designated drawer and opened it. He pulled out the bottle opener in victory.

“It’s just a bottle opener, not the holy grail.”

“To you maybe.” He uncapped his beer and took a swallow. “Explain this to me, please. Why is it, that you can’t remember a damn thing about who you are, but you know where the spare key is hidden and where you keep the opener?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s some form of muscle memory, like your body remembers how to do certain things, some that require great skill, even when you haven’t practiced them in a long while.”

Dean’s lips pulled into a side grin as he nodded. “Yeah it does. Know what I’m saying?” Dean pumped his eyebrows leaving no room for doubt in Castiel's mind about what he was thinking.

“Is everything about sex with you?”

“No,” he said with a frown, but then he looked off behind Castiel and a goofy grin crept back onto his face as he drank again, making him think that Dean’s mind probably was set to that single track.

Castiel tried to think of more leads they could follow, where else they could look, but other than the inane, automatic information about keys and the contents of his drawers, his mind was a complete blank. He rubbed at his forehead. He looked up when he heard the sound of things being shifted around. Dean was bent over the drawer again. He suddenly straightened up looking like he’d just found a winning lottery ticket. “Yes!” he suddenly exclaimed, pulling out what looked like a couple pieces of paper.

“What is that?” Castiel moved closer so he could see.

“New leads, that’s what! We’ve got a dry cleaner’s ticket and a book of matches.”

“So… Why is that important?”

“The dry cleaner might remember you. It’s like church, people always go to the same one.”

“Ok… and the matches?”

“This particular book happens to have an address written in it.” Dean turned the matchbook around so Castiel could see inside the flap. Castiel leaned in closer. “Does that look like a five or a six to you?” Dean asked him.

He pursed his lips and frowned. “A five, I think. What do you think that address is?”

“I don’t know, but I say it’s worth checking out.”

Castiel looked up, he hadn’t realized how close he had leaned in towards Dean as he looked at the scribbled numbers. Remembering how he felt about having his private space invaded, Castiel quickly straightened up and took a step back, swallowing non-existent spit. Why was he being so awkward? He glanced up as Dean walked past him and he noticed that the beer had been left, forgotten and untouched, except a sip or two, on the counter.

~

The dry cleaner’s shop was a tiny single floor building flanked on one side by an eightplex, much like Castiel’s own apartment building, and on the other was a simple hardware store with a residential loft above it. Castiel followed Dean as he made his way uphill from the apartment and walked into the squat, white building with the forest green awning.

Castiel looked around, continuing to search for clues and hints of memories. Dean walked up to the counter where a middle-aged man sat in a chair to the side reading a book. He had a trim brown beard that was starting to go grey and a stern face hidden under the bill of an old, battered baseball cap.

Pleasantries were exchanged between the man and Dean while Castiel waited, increasingly impatient. It seemed to have been worth the trip though when the man looked down at the dry-cleaning ticket.

“Yeah, I remember these alright,”

“You do?” Dean asked, surprise and excitement in his voice and body language.

“Yeah, gabardine, slate coloured, straight leg.”

“I remember those pants. I paid way too much for them, but someone made me buy them… can’t remember who.”

“Do you happen to remember the guy they belonged to?”

“Yeah, he was pleasant enough. Maybe a little dull.”

“Dull?” Castiel reacted. He wasn't dull. Dean subtly waved his hand at him and he understood that to mean shut up, so he settled for glaring at the older man who had called him “dull”.

“Anything else?” Dean prompted.

“No, not particularly. He never really stuck around to chat. He’d be in here maybe once a week, always dropping off suits. Expensive. Odd stains.”

“Stains?” Dean asked, looking like he’d rather not know.

“Grow up, Dean.”

“Yeah, stains. Blood mostly.”

It was Castiel’s turn to look surprised. Blood? Why would he have blood on his suits? Castiel looked down at himself, his blue suit as pristine as if he’d just put it on, even though he could no longer remember wearing anything else. His trench coat had no visible stains on it either. Blood?

“Um, gross. I’m kind of afraid to ask now, but do you remember anything more about him? Maybe his name?”

“Sorry, drawing a blank on his name. I haven’t seen him in months. But, he always kinda struck me as sad. Lonely.”

“Who is this? Dr. Phil, dry cleaner?” Castiel leveled a full frown on the man behind the counter, past caring that he could not see him. Everything was so frustrating, and he could feel all of it trying to surge out of his gut and mix with his uselessness and he just wanted to break something.

“Um, yeah thanks,” Dean said, glancing towards him then back to the guy. “You think I can get those pants?”

“Sorry. Unclaimed items are donated to the local shelters. What do I look like your personal walk-in closet?”

“He gave away my pants? They were expensive!”

“Hey, thanks anyways. You were a great help.”

“Help? He didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.”

As he turned back towards the door, Dean mumbled under his breath, “Come on, let’s go.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome. Idjit,” the man behind the counter mumbled back at him.

Castiel followed Dean back out onto the street, the door swinging shut through him and his arm going through Dean as he walked past him in a huff.

“Hey! Watch it!” Dean called out, yanking his arm back.

“I can’t believe he gave away my pants. Those were mine!”

“Calm down before you short out the city block, man. They’re just pants.”

“No, they are not “just pants”, Dean. They are a part of who I am. A clue. They were a part of figuring out why I’m like this. Don’t you get it?”

“I--”

“You can’t possibly understand. All you care about is watching dumb soap operas and… and drinking yourself into liver failure.”

“Hey, now--”

“I don’t know why I bothered to ask for your help. This is not getting us anywhere.”

“Would you SHUT UP!” Dean suddenly yelled, making Castiel stop short. Across the street, a woman stopped in her tracks and stared at where Dean was. He gave her an apologetic smile and she started walking again, noticeably faster. “I don’t need you to get all hysterical on me, got it? So, the dry cleaner’s was a bust, get over it. We have another lead, remember? And I don’t care that right now you’re clinging to whatever you’re clinging to trying to figure out who you are, it is NOT okay to make me look like an insane person! Now would you get in? I will not be the crazy guy on the MUNI talking to himself.”

Castiel looked at where they were. Somehow, they had gotten back to the apartment building and Dean was standing on the driver’s side of a sleek black car. He pulled the door open and disappeared inside as he took a seat behind the wheel. Castiel looked at the clean, late 60’s lines of American muscle and automatically wondered how much mileage he got out of it. Then the car abruptly pulled away from the curb, making its way down the steep hill to the corner, and turned onto the next street.

“You left me back there,” Castiel said, annoyed, suddenly sitting beside Dean on the front bench seat.

“I figured you’d rubber band your way back to being a pain in my ass.”

“And what if I hadn’t? What if I had stayed stuck back there?”

Dean turned and locked eyes with him, the green looking muddy in the relative darkness of the car. “Win/win,” he said coolly before turning back to face out the windshield.

“Are we really driving?” Castiel asked as Dean pulled up to a red light behind a line of cars waiting to move forward or turn in the endless gridlock that was the urban maze of San Francisco. “It would be faster to walk.”

“Maybe for you, Patrick Swayze.”

“Who?”

“Swayze… Ghost… It’s a movie.”

“I don’t understand that reference. And I worry about the noise coming from your engine… should it be that loud?”

Dean revved the engine as the light turned green, “V8, baby. 400 pounds of torque. Just listen to her purr,” he said smiling like a proud father.

“It sounds like a wheezing ninety-year-old chain smoker,” Castiel said, flatly.

Dean reached his hand forward and petted the dashboard affectionately, “Don’t listen to him, Baby. He didn’t mean it.”

~

Some time later, more time than it should have taken to drive the four miles, Dean pulled up to the inclined curb and pushed on the parking brake, before climbing out of the car. Castiel was waiting for him as he stood on the sidewalk looking up at the front door of the Victorian house, lost between the houses going up and down Alvarado street with barely a space between them to make them separate entities. The only thing that differentiated this particular white wood siding house with the pitched roof from the others was the large 425 nailed just above the garage door.

“This doesn’t look familiar, Dean.”

“What are you talking about? Looks like every damn house in this city. Hell, it looks familiar to me.”

Castiel’s anger had disappeared as quickly as it had come, and he was left feeling weary. Although, he truly wanted to get to the bottom of why he was the way he was, it was becoming more difficult as the day wore on. He was feeling physically spent, even without the body – he was weary down to his bones.

Dean made his way up the many steps to the front door. Castiel followed behind him, trying to pull himself back into investigation mode. They could not afford to let a clue pass them by. Dean rang the doorbell, and they waited. Before long, a tall man with a strong chin covered in a trim greying beard opened the door. Everything about the man seemed long: his head, his neck, his arms. Though he was taller than Dean, he lacked the build to make him look anything other than slender. He had light brown hair and if Castiel had to guess, he’d say the man was in his forties. He looked like a pediatrician.

“Can I help you?” the man asked in a slightly nasal voice that reminded him of a stereotype New York mobster. Beyond the voice being slightly annoying though, there was nothing about the man that evoked even a spark of feeling or recognition.

“Yeah, hi. I’m trying to find someone, and I was hoping that maybe you could help me. This guy’s about this tall. Black hair. Big blue eyes?”

The man suddenly looked behind him at the hallway and then stepped out, holding the door partly shut and leaning out towards Dean who took a step back, surprised.

“Who are you?” the man whispered fiercely through clenched teeth, a darkness clouding his eyes.

Dean raised his hands to his shoulders, “Hey, I don’t know you—”

“Did my wife hire you?”

“Your wife? What? No, I—”

“Whatever she’s paying you, I’ll double it.”

Castiel watched the exchange tumble out of control and all he could feel was horror. This could not be the only clue that meant anything. Not this man afraid his wife would discover a secret of his that involved him.

In the meantime, Dean tried to regain some form of control over the conversation. “I’m not looking for money, sir. I’m just trying to find my friend—”

“Alastair, darling. Who is it?” suddenly called out a woman’s voice coming from inside the house and who could only be the man’s aforementioned wife.

“Come back around six,” the man suddenly said to Dean, “I’ll have a check ready.”

“No! Wait… sir!”

The man disappeared inside, closing the door in Dean’s face. Castiel’s mind was racing. What could any of this mean? Dean turned around, and as soon as his eyes landed on Castiel, he started to laugh.

Castiel pursed his lips, “This isn’t funny, Dean.”

What had started off as a light laugh quickly turned into gasping laughter as Dean tried to catch his breath. “Wow,” he finally managed to say as the last of the spasms shook through him. He pressed a hand to his side as he made it down the stairs and back to the sidewalk beside the car.

“Are you done laughing at me?” Castiel asked, feeling his patience pushed to the brink again by Dean’s mocking.

“Come on, man… that’s just. That’s just perfect. Was _he_ more your type?”

Caught between shame and confusion, Castiel settled for defensive. “You don’t really think I slept with that man.”

“No,” Dean said. In the pause between his words, Castiel looked at him hopefully. “I don’t think there was much sleeping involved, Cas.” Castiel’s hope petered out as he watched Dean pump his eyebrows suggestively and then break into another fit of quiet giggles.

“My name is Castiel. And that’s disgusting.”

“Oh come on, he’s a distinguished looking gentleman. You’re not into the hot neighbour, maybe you're gay. No shame in that.” Dean leaned back on the car and smiled at Castiel expectantly.

“That man in there cheats on his wife. I don’t need any bigoted slurs from the likes of you, Dean Winchester.”

Dean’s smile slid off his face and he straightened up. He held his hands out to the side. “That’s not…” He didn’t finish his sentence as he looked at Castiel with his calculating look. Castiel felt like he was under a microscope as the man judged him. He wanted to be angry at him but something from deep within him snuffed out the anger and made him feel like he wanted to crawl into the deepest crevasse and disappear, something that went far beyond memory and experience, something that had marked him down to his soul. He had allowed himself to like Dean, despite his slobbish tendencies, there was something about the man that called to him and made him yearn for his company. And he was laughing at him.

Dean’s frown disappeared from his face again as he looked away and he smiled and started to laugh softly again. “Hey, look on the bright side! At six, I’m coming into some money!”

The green eyes looked at him again, the skin crinkling slightly at the corners, and Castiel couldn’t understand what Dean wanted from him. He frowned, trying to understand what the other man was thinking. “You’ll just spend it on more booze,” he settled on saying.

“Hey!” Dean said, moving to stand by the passenger door and opening it with a squeal of hinges. “I don’t need any drunk prejudice from you, buddy.” His tone sounded gruff and annoyed, but he smiled as he held the door and gestured for Castiel to get into the car.

“Thank you,” Castiel said warily.

“You’re welcome,” answered Dean as he closed the door, Castiel settled on the passenger side of the full front seat. He watched him walk around the front of the car, that easy smile back on his face, and then he was opening the driver’s door with another squeal and sat down.

Castiel cast about for something to say. “Your doors need to be oiled.”

Dean’s smile fell off his face again and he frowned as he turned the key in the ignition. Castiel went back to thinking about the encounter they’d just had and he looked out the side window at the house, imagining that the man was spying on them as they pulled away from the curb. “What if I really was someone’s secret gay lover?” he mused out loud. “Oh my God… I’m a homewrecker.”

The sleek black Impala drove away, the engine rumbling loudly and then slowly fading into the distance as Jody Mills came out of 426 Alvarado St. She gazed off down the street absently as the last of it disappeared, drowned by the rest of the traffic sounds. Then, her mind returned to the patients she would be meeting within the hour and she quickly locked her door and made her way down to the nearest MUNI stop that would take her to St-Matthews.


	8. Chapter 8

The black Impala navigated the busy San Francisco streets of Haight-Ashbury with more grace and dexterity than a car that size should have the right to. The sleek black heavy metal on wheels slipped fearlessly into gaps between cars that were barely gaps before it wedged itself in, trusting the cars around it to accommodate its size. Dean looked alert, but relaxed as he turned the wheel this way and that and somehow managed to parallel park the beast one street over from Haight.

“Why are we here?” Castiel asked, sullen and frustrated.

Dean leaned in towards him. “That matchbook had more than some random address as a clue. It came from somewhere, which means maybe you were there too.”

“Me, or my closet gay lover,” he grumbled. This whole day had only revealed to Castiel the sad lonely truth of his existence and he’d had enough of it. He didn’t want to keep digging just to find out how useless and dull his life had been.

“Cas… Castiel. Why are you upset? We’re getting somewhere.”

“No, we’re not. We’re no closer to finding out who I am, nor why I’m like this.”

“Well, look at it this way. The worse that can happen is that we find out you died alone of an overdose convulsing on the floor.”

Castiel was instantly horrified. Where had that come from? “I do not do drugs, Dean.”

“Just like you’re not some douchewad’s secret gay lover?”

Castiel opened his mouth to argue but found that he could not. His conviction was wavering. All throughout his neighbours’ assessments of the recluse who lived on the top floor, and with every new information they gathered, all Castiel could think was that they had him all wrong. He could feel it. His essence, his soul, or whatever was left of him that was floating around, following the only person who could see and hear him, that part of him knew, with absolute certainty, that he was not what those people imagined him to be. And yet… he could not deny that though he felt they were wrong, they all seemed to agree with each other, painting a bleak existence. Maybe he was better off not knowing.

“You doing alright there, buddy?” Dean asked him, keeping his tone conversational as he walked through the late afternoon crowd.

Castiel looked up from his wallowing, only slightly surprised that they were no longer in the car, unsure what to answer. Dean had agreed to help him only because he had bullied him into doing it, and for what? “I’m sorry, Dean. This isn’t turning out like I had hoped.”

“Well, what did you think we’d find out? You’re some sort of Rockstar?”

“No, but, what if my life… what if it turns out my life was completely meaningless, like…”

“What? Like mine? Thanks.” Dean rolled his eyes and shook his head breaking out of the crowd to cross the street.

“I didn’t mean it that way. Dean,” Castiel pleaded, feeling more awkward than ever, alienating the one person helping him. He followed Dean across the street and was suddenly struck by that feeling of familiarity. He frowned as he looked around and his eyes landed on the glassed restaurant front with the sheer white drapes. “Dean!”

“What, now?” Dean grumbled as he turned around.

“I know this place,” Castiel said in awe.

“You recognize it?” Castiel glanced at Dean, trying to understand his tone. Everything about him, posture, facial expression and voice, it all pointed to him being much more excited at the prospect of him recognizing something than was warranted. Dean didn’t wait for him to answer, he walked right up to the door and pulled it open. He paused, standing in the doorway before Castiel realized he was holding the door for him.

“That’s unnecessary. I can just walk through it.”

“I was trying to be nice,” Dean said through clenched teeth.

“It makes you look a little ridiculous.”

“Gee, thanks for letting me know,” Dean answered with a roll of his eyes. He pulled out the matchbook that had the address scribbled in the flap. “This is the place, _Moose’s_.” He put away the matchbook in his pocket and looked up at Castiel expectantly. “Is it jogging your memory?”

Castiel frowned and looked around the restaurant. That feeling of familiarity had completely disappeared, though it had been replaced by an odd yearning. “I love this restaurant.”

“Awesome!” Dean whispered, keeping his voice low. “If you ate here a lot, maybe the waiters remember you. This is great.”

“No. I never ate here.” Castiel’s frown deepened as he tried to draw out more from the fleeting impressions. He looked around again, trying to understand. When his eyes landed on Dean again, he was looking annoyed and frustrated. “I wanted to…” he added slowly keeping his eyes on him, noticing that same yearning he was feeling for the restaurant twist at him when he did. “But, I just never did.”

Castiel felt an overwhelming sadness realizing that the things he yearned for could never be his, not now. What good did a restaurant do for someone without a body? What good would come of him falling for a man who could not love him back? “_The Heart wants what it wants – or else it does not care_.” Castiel said under his breath, lost in his contemplations.

“What?” Dean asked, pulling him back to the present.

Castiel glanced at him, but didn’t dare linger, “Maybe the dry cleaner was right about me. Let’s go.”

Castiel turned to walk out, followed by Dean.

A dash of frustration and an exploited weakness and suddenly a waiter collapsed into the center of an open space, the tray that had been in his hands causing a clatter that made Castiel and Dean turn around again.

“Oh my God, Max!” cried the girl behind the bar.

“Alicia call 9-1-1!” called out the black maitre D as she crouched down to examine the fallen waiter. “I can’t tell if he’s breathing.

Castiel watched the drama unfold with a note of familiarity and confused recollection. The more he watched the staff struggle to help their fallen friend and colleague, the more his hands itched to intervene. As the patrons of the restaurant closed in around the scene in helpless fascination, the woman on the ground cried out desperately: “We need a doctor!”

“Feel his chest,” Castiel said completely focused.

“What?” asked Dean who turned away from the scene with wide eyes.

“His chest. You need to check if it’s bloated.”

“How the hell would I know if it’s bloated?”

“Just do it!” Castiel ordered him.

Looking like the last thing he wanted to do was feel some dying man’s chest, Dean turned and pushed through the gathered people. “Move! I need to feel his chest.”

The people responded to his assertive words and parted the way for him. He crouched down beside the man, Castiel kneeling beside him as he tried to take stock of the situation without being able to touch. The man was barely more than a boy, slender and youthful. He had a shaved head and a clean face and looked like the least likely candidate for suddenly not breathing mid-shift.

“Open his shirt, Dean.”

“Are you sure about this?” Dean whispered, looking very pale.

“I can’t do this without you. We’re wasting precious time.”

“Okay! Okay. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

After Dean ripped open the man’s shirt, sending buttons flying with his stiff movements, Castiel guided him through a basic examination of his chest, asking him questions.

“Can you feel his ribs?”

“I can if I press down,” he muttered under his breath.

A build like this boy had, lying prone on his back, his ribs should have been at least partly visible, certainly easy to feel.

“Does he feel bloated?” Dean nodded his head yes as his fingers pushed against the soft mocha coloured skin, Castiel noticed the long surgical scar down his front, clearly he had a history with medical interventions.

“Please,” the maitre D said, looking right at Dean, “What’s wrong with him?”

“Tell her it’s a tension pneumothorax,” Castiel said, “You need a sharp paring knife and bottle of vodka.”

“It’s a what?” Dean asking him through clenched teeth.

“Air is escaping out of his lungs and into his chest. It’s creating pressure around the organs.”

Dean conveyed the information as best he could to the people around him and then asked for the knife and vodka. Castiel guided him again to find the spot between two ribs near the bottom of the chest. Dean was doing well, following instructions, splashing vodka onto the skin without question, until Castiel asked him to take the knife.

“What am I doing with the knife?!” Dean whispered quickly, sounding strained. Castiel tried to calm him down by giving him clear instructions.

“You’re going to make an incision in that exact place. It’s going to relieve the pressure and he’ll be able to breathe again.” Dean shook his head so quickly it looked like he was trying to clear a ringing in his ears. “Dean. This man’s life is at stake. Put the blade against his skin.”

“How do you know this?” Dean asked as the point of the small knife started pressing into the puffed-out skin.

“I don’t know, I just do. Just push in the knife.” Castiel watched as Dean struggled with himself, his hands shaking. “Harder, Dean!” Castiel barked at him.

The blade sank into the man’s chest and Dean looked horrified. “Okay, good! That’s enough. Get the pourer from the vodka bottle.”

Dean scrambled one handed to remove the pouring tip from the bottle. Before Castiel could tell him what to do with it, the bottle was on Dean’s mouth and he was taking a long swallow of the clear liquid. “Dean, stop it. We’re not done here.” Dean put the bottle down, his face puckered like he’d eaten a lemon. “Put the pourer in the incision you just made.”

“What? Why? Are you insane?”

“Just do it. It’ll keep the hole from closing.”

Hands still shaking, Dean pushed the pourer into the cut and suddenly, the man’s puffed chest deflated with a sigh.

“He’s breathing!” yelled out Dean, his eyes round and his mouth agog.

“The ambulance is on its way,” called the girl, Alicia, from where she stood with the phone.

Castiel looked around, feeling the realization come upon him suddenly, but knowing it to be true as though it had always been there. “I’m a doctor!” he exclaimed straightening up suddenly.

Dean stood up too, his body still tense from the adrenaline rush through his system and he wavered a moment, his arms coming up towards Castiel, like he was reaching for him before remembering that there was nothing of him to embrace. Castiel ignored the pang, trying to hold on to the euphoria of having figured out another piece of the puzzle. “Ask them where the nearest hospital is.”

Dean turned to Alicia, who was still clutching the phone and looking down at the man on the ground and asked her.

“Um, St-Matthews. A few blocks up through the Panhandle.”

“Thank you,” Dean said, his hand on her arm, the sound of the ambulance siren wailing as it got closer.

Castiel started walking back out to the street, but Dean stopped him. “Are we just leaving him like this?” Dean was gesturing towards the assembled group of bystanders still standing around the man with the hole in his chest.

“The ambulance will be here in a moment. Do you really want to explain to the EMTs how a man with no medical background was able to successfully do a thoracostomy with only rudimentary equipment?” Castiel watched as Dean opened his mouth to respond, but then closed it again looking flustered. “He’ll be fine. Let’s go.”

Together, Castiel and Dean left the restaurant their new destination clear. Castiel could feel that they were finally moving towards some answers.

~

St-Matthews Hospital stood tall and wide, dominating its corner of Hayes Street and stretching out to the next street over with its adjoining cluster of buildings. There was a never-ending stream of people coming and going through the main building doors seeking the help of the medical professionals inside. Castiel took a deep breath to steady nerves he did not have while Dean kept up a near constant manic chatter that Castiel found difficult to keep track of.

“I’ve never saved a life before,” he said, finally falling silent.

Castiel turned to look at him and found that he was fixated on his hand. “What’s wrong?”

“What is that?” Dean asked.

Castiel moved closer looking down at the smear of red on Dean’s finger and palm. “That’s just blood,” he told him.

“Oh,” Dean said, moving up to the hospital doors and walking through them as they slid open automatically. Castiel just spied Dean wiping his hand on his jeans then squirting anti-septic foam into his palm from a nearby dispenser, then his attention was taken up by the mess of activity in the reception area. His eyes flitted from one person in scrubs to another as his mind was flooded with information about each one: names, personalities, interactions. He knew these people. He knew this place. This was where he had spent most of his time, working insane hours to… Why?

Try as he might, some things remained out of reach. There was still more for him to remember.

“Oh my God, this place is straight out of Dr. Sexy M.D.” Dean said, his voice coming from somewhere behind Castiel. He turned around and found Dean flicking his eyes away quickly. Had he been staring at him? “So,” Dean pushed on, looking around, “This place look familiar?”

“Yes. All of it. I worked here. That’s why the neighbours never saw me. I was almost always here.”

“Dude, that’s… Why?”

“Nothing is more important than saving lives Dean.” He fixed Dean with his stare, willing him to understand his life’s work.

“Okay,” Dean paused, looking away slightly. Castiel turned back to look at the busy staff. “So, where do we start?”

Castiel’s eyes landed on the clerk sitting behind the reception desk. She had long blonde hair and honey eyes with full lips and an easy smile. “Jess,” Castiel said as he started moving to the desk, Dean in tow.

“Um, hi,” Dean said, clearing his throat.

Castiel rolled his eyes. “Eyes up, Dean. Focus.”

Dean pursed his lips but didn’t say anything. He gave Jess a smile. “My name is Dean Winchester. I’m looking for someone who works here. A doctor? Called Castiel?”

Jess’s smile wavered and her eyebrows knitted together as she looked at Dean uncertainly.

“Uh oh. That’s not good,” said Castiel.

“Castiel? Do you mean Castiel Masterson?”

“Yes! That’s it! That’s my name!”

“Um, yeah exactly,” Dean said to Jess, “Could you tell me where I can find him?”

“I’m sorry. Dr. Masterson isn’t… active on our staff… um… at the moment.”

Castiel watched as Jess became agitated, he could tell she was trying to keep her professional composure, but something clearly had her concerned. “She’s got the look.”

“Excuse me a moment,” Jess said, and she turned to talk to Nick who had just come into the area carrying patient files.

Dean turned towards him slightly, but kept his voice down, “What look? What’s wrong? We’re about to get some answers.”

Castiel could almost feel his airways constricting even though logically he knew that he had none to breathe through. “She’s trying to find someone else to tell you I’m dead. I am dead. You were right all along.”

“You’re overreacting, man. It’s okay. You’re okay. Just keep calm.”

Dean was looking right at him and Castiel focused on him too, trying to use Dean’s calm energy to soothe himself. Before long, Jess was back, and Dean turned around to face her when Castiel pointed her out.

“Excuse me. Could you go to the third-floor nursing station?”

“Why? Is there a problem?”

“Someone will meet you there and explain the situation.”

Castiel closed his eyes and shook his head. It was all going so terribly wrong.

“Come on, Castiel. Get a grip on yourself. If you fritz out this elevator, I’m gonna make your afterlife a living hell.”

Castiel opened his eyes and looked around. He and Dean were alone in an elevator and the lights were flashing erratically. Dean was watching the numbers over the door, looking a little green. Castiel had no recollection of getting into the elevator at all.

The doors opened on the third floor and more memories of his time spent there came back. When he hadn’t been on emergency room duty, this was the ward he had spent the most time on. It was an extension of the ER without being intensive care. People who had come in at the emergency level, who weren’t in critical state but also weren’t well enough to be discharged were usually dispatched here while they waited for various surgeries and treatments.

Dean started walking towards the nurse’s station that was off to the left in the center of an anthill chamber-like area where several hallways met. Castiel’s eyes landed on the face that had been such a comfort and help throughout his residency and who had become one of his closest friends other than—

Castiel scrambled at the glimmer of memory but it was gone again before he could grasp it.

“What’s wrong?” Dean asked him quietly as they got closer to the desk.

“It’s Jody: my mentor. Jess wouldn’t have sent you up here if it wasn’t bad.”

Dean glanced at his face quickly before turning back to look at the woman in the white lab coat who had just looked up from her paperwork, spotting him. “You want us to go? Just say the word and we’re out of here.”

Castiel tried to steady his thoughts. Part of him desperately wanted to run away, but… “Of course not. We need answers, and she’s the best person to give them to us.”

“Mr. Winchester?” the doctor asked as she drew up to him holding out her hand.

“Yes. Dean,” he specified, taking her hand in his and giving it a squeeze and a shake.

“I’m Dr. Jody Mills. You’ve been asking about Castiel Masterson?” She stuck her hands into her lab coat pockets, keeping her chestnut eyes on him. Castiel could tell she was sizing him up, trying to guess who he was and what he wanted with him.

“Yeah. I’m trying to find out what happened to him. Could you help me?”

“First, I’m gonna need to know your relationship with him.”

“My… relationship?” Dean repeated, sounding unsure.

“Tell her you’re my boyfriend,” Castiel instructed him. When Dean didn’t say anything Castiel turned to look at him as he fidgeted. Annoyed and hurt, Castiel forgot to be kind, “Suck it up, Dean. It’s just to get information. She can’t tell you anything if we’re not intimate. You don’t have to be so homophobic about it.”

Dean turned to frown at him a bare second, then turned back to Jody unclenching his jaw. “We’re, you know… intimate.”

The skeptic frown on Jody’s face caught Castiel by surprise. “What do you mean?” she asked, giving Dean another, slower once over. Why would she doubt his words?

Dean squared his shoulders, looking more confident as he declared, “He’s my boyfriend.”

Jody cracked a surprised smile, her eyebrows dancing through a series of expressions before settling more neutrally as she nodded. “I don’t mean to pry; I just find it unlikely that you’re Castiel’s boyfriend.”

“What? Why not? Castiel’s gay.”

Jody’s smile turned apologetic, “I know, I’m sorry, Dean. What I meant was that… Castiel’s whole life was this hospital—”

“She said was.” Castiel felt like the ground beneath his insubstantial feet had tilted and dropped away.

“—I don’t know of a single date he’d ever been on.”

Thankfully, Dean seemed to be in better control of himself as he continued to dig for information. Their words reached Castiel as though they were coming from the end of a very long tunnel and everything around him faded and flickered.

“It was pretty new. I live in his apartment… building.”

“So, you don’t know about the accident.”

Bright lights bore down on Castiel once again as he swerved on the rain slicked road and he heard the sound of crunching metal and breaking glass. Pain. His whole body had felt like he was in a vice, being squeezed flat. And then there was nothing.

“Um… I was… I’ve been away.” Dean’s voice faded along with his surroundings and Castiel was swallowed by darkness and a total absence of sound. The nothing pressed in against him like cotton earmuffs making his head feel like it would explode.

“Dean!” he cried out desperate and terrified.

A slow steady thump sounded in his ears, mirrored by a beeping that resonated in his head before it faded away and then the thump again, and another beep. Castiel looked down at his hands, at least where his hands should be, but found only darkness.

“Castiel?”

He heard his voice calling him, pulling him out of that deep darkness and back into the light. His hands and body reappeared and slowly his surroundings came back into focus and he realized that he was no longer at the nurse’s station, but was standing in a hospital room, at the foot of a bed. And in the bed…

“Oh my God. It’s you.” Dean’s voice no longer sounded distant and faded and Castiel turned his head to see him stepping further into the room to stand beside him. “You’re not dead!”

Dean moved up to stand beside his body lying in the hospital bed, sheets covering him up to his waist. He had wires running out from under the blue hospital gown connected to the nearby heartrate monitor, an IV drip plugged to his left arm and an intubation tube forcing his lungs to keep breathing. Castiel moved up to the monitor set up on the other side from where Dean stood looking down at his body. He read the numbers displayed with a frown.

“I’m in a coma, Dean. This isn’t good.”

“Better than dead! This is a win, buddy!” Castiel looked up at Dean. He was so excited. His eyes were practically sparkling with it. “And you don’t have any scars or anything. You’re healing. You look… good.”

“Dean.” Castiel waited for him to look away from the shell on the bed and focus on him. “It doesn’t matter what my body looks like. I’ve been in a coma for three months. Persistent comas… people don’t just wake up from them.”

Dean was quiet and pensive as he looked down at Castiel’s comatose body. “Okay. Maybe they don’t. But miracles happen. And maybe… just maybe, we have all the ingredients for a miracle right here.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I don’t know! You’re the doctor.”

“This goes far beyond any medical studies and findings. All my training has taught me that this… shell is as good as dead.”

Dean shook his head side-to-side, his lips pursed. “No. Not good enough. What if…”

“What?”

“What if you just… jump back in there? Or something.”

Castiel looked from Dean to his shell on the bed and back again. “I don’t know.”

“Just try it! I mean, it worked on me, right? And this is your actual body!”

Castiel looked at the excitement in Dean’s face and felt hopeful. Dean’s enthusiasm was contagious, and it gave Castiel the courage to try. “Alright,” he said, looking down at himself, determined to make it work.

Castiel sat on the edge of the hospital bed and lay down. He focused all his will into reconnecting with his flesh and bones, visualizing the blood in his veins and the air in his lungs.

“It’s working! I think something’s happening!” Dean exclaimed. Castiel straightened up in the bed and Dean startled back looking at him. “Whoah! Double vision, man.”

Castiel frowned looking down at his trenchcoat-clad torso sticking out of his hospital bed body. “It’s not working.”

“Try again. Really focus on it.”

Castiel settled back down trying to feel… anything. He could no more feel his body than he could feel the people and things he moved through without a shock or tickle of connection. He remembered the feel of moving Dean’s body before when he had pulled him out of that bar and he tried to force that feeling into his own hands raising first one arm and then the other, but his hands stayed obstinately inert, laying at his sides.

“It’s no use,” he said, sitting up again. “There’s just nothing connecting me to this body anymore.” He stood up beside the bed once more, feeling the sadness and despair start to well up inside him. “It’s a cruel twist of fate that brought us so close just to dash all our hopes like an impetuous child.”

He could barely look at Dean. He didn’t want to see his pity. He turned away from him, looking out towards the curtained windows. Lost in his own despair, just trying to come to terms with the delayed inevitable, it took him a moment to notice the tingling in his arm. He looked down at it, confused, as the feeling intensified until he could almost feel the hand smoothing down his forearm and squeezing his hand. He turned to look at Dean and found the man holding his body’s hand. He had a gentle smile on his face as he looked up at Castiel.

“You felt that,” Dean told him with confidence.

“My hand… tingled.” Castiel shook his head and rolled his eyes, letting his hand fall back to his side. “I sound like a nine-year-old girl.”

Dean laughed and stepped away from the hospital bed to come stand beside him. “Trust me, you really don’t,” he said with a playful wink. “But you know what that means right? If you could feel me touching your body, then you’re still connected to it.”

“The machines don’t agree.”

“Machines don’t know everything.”

“Everything I know, all the evidence I’ve seen right here, in this hospital, tells me they do.”

Dean’s smile didn’t waver as he kept his eyes on Castiel, “Then how are we having this conversation?”

Castiel and Dean stood looking at each other. That yearning Castiel had felt before came on suddenly and he found himself fantasizing about having him take him in his arms and just hold him. In that moment there was nothing he wanted more in the world than to have a body just so Dean could comfort him. The feeling was so strong he nearly moved to close the space that separated them, body or no.

The door of the room suddenly opened startling Castiel and making Dean turn to look at who was coming in.

“Mr. Winchester, I’m truly sorry,” said Jody as she took a step into the room but stayed leaning against the open door. “I have an appointment and I can’t leave you in here alone.”

“Uh, right. Do you think I could have just a few more minutes? I need to say goodbye.”

Jody gave him a sympathetic smile and let the door close behind her. Castiel turned around and took a closer look at the windowsill. There were a few picture frames and flower arrangements and every space in between was covered in drawings and crafts all labeled with Uncle Castiel. Some were clearly meant to be portraits of him; generic round faces with black hair and blue eyes all done in bright wax crayons. Castiel smiled, warmed by the love of his nieces, memories of them rolling through his mind like a strange montage of family videos. He remembered their mother with the hair like fire and their father; his brother.

“My nieces must have made these for me.”

Dean came to stand beside him and picked up one of the portraits. “Little Picassos. What’s with the nose?”

“They’re six and four, Dean.”

Castiel watched Dean as he scanned the pieces of Castiel’s life and settled on picking up a four by six photograph in a wooden frame. Castiel chuckled as he looked at it too. He was pulling a funny face in that one, but it always made him smile.

“That’s the picture from my nightstand. Gabriel must have brought it.”

Dean shifted from one foot to the other, keeping his eyes on the photo. “You look great. Happy.” Castiel nodded remembering the night. “Who’s the dude?” Dean asked tapping the sable-haired man with the fake black mustache who had his arm around his shoulders.

“That’s my brother, Gabriel. He always made me smile with his pranks and his jokes.”

Dean put the picture back down and Castiel looked again at all the drawings and the flowers. His family had been watching over him. It made him happy, but also a little sad. They had spent three months keeping an empty body company.

“Hey,” Dean said gently, drawing him back to him. He was glancing back at the door. “I’m gonna have to go.”

“Alright,” said Castiel, feeling a small pang inside.

“Do you want me to wait for you in the lobby?”

“No. That’s okay. Go home, Dean. I’m going to stay here.” Castiel nodded towards his body as he moved closer to the bedside again.

“Are you sure? You can come back with me. It’s fine. I mean… it _is_ your apartment.”

“Thank you. But I just can’t imagine leaving myself… not now that I made it here.”

Dean nodded, taking a few steps towards the door but then turning back. “It just feels weird, okay? Leaving you here, alone.”

Castiel felt the sadness inside him again and he looked down at his body. “I don’t know where else I belong.” He turned to look at Dean again who was just standing at the foot of the bed, one hand on the footrest as he stared at him, at his spirit, where he stood. When would he be seen like that again, he wondered?

The door opened again, and Dean turned to face Dr. Mills as she held the door open. “I’m sorry, Mr. Winchester—”

“Sorry. I know,” he said then he turned back to look at Castiel who couldn’t take his eyes off him. “Goodbye, Castiel.”

“Goodbye, Dean.”

Castiel watched Dean leave the room and then turned to look at his sleeping form on the bed. It was so strange seeing himself there, and yet, he felt impassive, like he was looking at some stranger who happened to look like him. He glanced around the room once then headed out, straight through the wall and back to the nurse’s station. Jody was standing at the desk with Lisa, both of them looking towards the elevators.

Castiel turned in the same direction to see what they were looking at. Dean was waiting for the doors to open and seeing him, Castiel felt that pang to his gut again. But it was better this way. Better for Castiel, and better for Dean. He would be able to go on with his life and Castiel would just become a strange memory. The doors opened, and Dean stepped in without a backward glance.

“I hate this,” Jody said, suddenly, drawing Castiel’s attention. “He finally gets a life, and then…”

“Yeah, but wow. That guy was cute. At least Castiel got the chance to hang with him for a while.”

“It would’ve been awful if he’d gone his whole life not knowing what it’s all about.”

Lisa nodded her head. “Still… It’s a shame though.”

“What is?”

“All the pretty ones are gay. Seriously, Castiel, that guy Dean… It should be a crime to take men like that out of the gene pool.”

“Oh for… Pete’s sake.”

Castiel could feel his slowly mounting distress at hearing his friends discussing him so openly. He knew that if they were aware that he’d heard them, they would feel horrible, but how could they know? He was imperceptible to anyone. He moved away from them, to avoid hearing any more of their comments on his non-existent love life and all the things he had missed out on in his thirty years of being alive. Because they were right in the end. All that time, and what for? What was left now?

A strange numbness came over him as he neared the break room where he had spent his few spare minutes here and there to recharge or converse depending on who else was present. He moved through the wall, no more feeling the plaster and concrete than he would the air on a still day. Meg was sitting, slumped in the same orange plastic chair he often had found himself dozing in. In her lap, was a limp salad from the hospital cafeteria, forgotten as she looked off to the side, lost in dark thought. He could remember the different exchanges they had had over the years, all of which had bordered on the obscene. She had once called him a unicorn, seeing her now though, he realized how lonely she must have been, all that thorny pain she kept hidden under all her sass.

He turned to the side and walked through the wall right where the coffee machine still sat and found himself in the supply room. Odd sounds drew his attention and he turned the corner between two storage shelves to find Lilith lip locked with Nick. “Oh!” was all Castiel could say as he finally realized why Lilith was always late, or nowhere to be found when he needed her. He watched them a moment longer, unable to feel even a hint of annoyance with them. If anything, he wished he could have felt what they were feeling, that rush of endorphins from being with the one you love.

Castiel continued his meandering through the next wall and found himself looking down at Crowley, sitting behind a large desk and talking on his cellphone. With a resigned smile, Castiel spoke to him, knowing he could not hear.

“I guess you got my job.”

“That’s right I did. I earned it.”

Castiel looked around the office then back to the black suited man, “Is it everything you thought it would be?”

“It is!” Crowley answered whoever he was talking to on the phone, “High time to upgrade. I’m thinking the 740 would do nicely. Going to the dealer tonight actually.”

The phone on Crowley’s desk started to ring, and Crowley glanced at it. “Hold on. God’s calling.” He put his cellphone down and picked up the desk phone. “Hello.” He paused, listening to whatever Dr. Shurley was telling him. “And you want _me_ to do it? … Yes, of course.” He hung up the phone looking pensive for a moment before going right back to his conversation on his cellphone, clearly not worried about whatever God had asked of him.

Castiel could feel his anger and frustration grow as he looked down at Crowley ignoring his duty. “Do you realize there are people out there dying? I’m in a coma. Have you even noticed?”

“I know,” Crowley answered into his phone. “Like the proverbial cherry on top.” An oily smile stretched his face from ear to ear as he looked in Castiel’s general direction without seeing him.

With a shake of his head, Castiel left Crowley’s office through the door. He stood in the hallway unsure which way to go, unsure where he wanted to be: surrounded by friends who could not see him, or alone with a body he could do nothing with.

Shrill, childish laughter echoed down the hall and Castiel turned his head just in time to see a streak of messy blonde curls followed by a stream of black hair run across the end of the hallway. “Claire? Alex?” Castiel found himself calling out as he rushed down the hallway after his nieces.

He caught up to them as they reached his bedside each pulling on his hands and fighting about who had won the race. Castiel watched them with a half-smile on his face. As they argued, he glanced down at his hands. Just a little while before, Dean had held his hand and he had felt it, and yet, with Alex and Claire yanking on him, he could feel nothing.

“Why is it that I can feel him, but not you?” he asked.

His thoughts were interrupted when Gabriel came walking into the room. “Oh, that’s funny! I distinctly remember saying no running and no screaming.”

“Gabriel!” Castiel called out, relieved to see his brother. If he had a connection to another human being on this planet, it was him. He walked up to him, “Can you feel me?”

Gabriel just kept on going, walking through Castiel to bring fresh flowers to the windowsill. “I guess not,” he said lowering his arms in defeat.

He turned back to watch his nieces as they told his shell how much they missed him and hoped he would get better soon so they could go play in the park again. Gabriel came to stand beside him as he watched his girls fondly. “It’s nice that you bring them to see me.”

Gabriel nodded like he had heard him and Castiel chose to believe he had, even though he could not. The door opened again and Castiel turned to see who had come in. He was not pleased to see Crowley.

“Mr. Masterson,” he said addressing Gabriel, holding out his hand. “I’m Dr. MacLeod.”

“Oh!” Gabriel answered with a smile, shaking Crowley’s hand. “That’s funny, my wife is a MacLeod.”

“Yes, an amazing coincidence,” Crowley said like he couldn’t care less. “Might I have a quick word?”

Gabriel followed him into the doorway out of earshot of the girls. Castiel followed them.

“Mr. Masterson, I don’t know if you’re aware, but when we come to work at the hospital, they ask us to sign certain release forms. Do you know your brother’s thoughts on artificially maintaining life?”

Castiel’s eyes widened in sudden panic. “No! Gabriel, no! Don’t listen to him.”

“No. It’s not really something that ever came up. You know: _Hey bro, pass the carrots, and oh speaking of vegetables, here’s what you should do if I ever become one_.”

“Well, your brother was against it. Most of us in the medical profession feel this way.”

“I’ve changed my mind! Gabriel please.”

Gabriel frowned, “Are you saying you want to unplug my baby brother?”

“I understand your concern, but we’ve taken some extraordinary measures, so far, keeping your brother alive. Measures that go against Castiel’s wishes. We have to come to terms with the medical facts: there is no bringing him back. We have to do the right thing.”

Castiel howled at Crowley, the man remaining impassive as he tried to convince Gabriel to let him go. He raged at his situation, being unable to communicate his wishes. He had been young, and naïve when he had signed those papers. He knew better now. There had to be more. He just needed time.

“But there’s still brain activity. People can wake up from these things,” argued Gabriel.

“I’m sorry, but other than social media sensationalism, there is no record of anyone waking up from the type of coma Castiel is in. I’m sorry.”

“Crowley you prick! What am I doing here, then?” Castiel growled into his face.

From inside the room, Castiel heard giggling and Gabriel’s attention shifted to what was happening inside. “What are you two demons doing? Stop messing with the bed!”

“But dad! We’re looking for the stick!” said Claire with all the seriousness of a six-year-old on a mission while her sister burst into more giggles.

Castiel turned to find that the bed was jackknifed with him in the middle; the girls had found the controls.

“What stick?” Gabriel asked, exasperated as he returned the bed to its previous position.

“You always say that Uncle Castiel has a stick up his—”

“Alright! That’s enough. We’re going home. Mommy’s going to cut up your fingers and use ‘em to summon a minor deity to eat you up.” Gabriel gathered his girls, who had burst into another fit of giggles at Gabriel’s absurd suggestion, while he mutterer under his breath. Castiel distinctly heard him say “_If he’d had more things up his butt, he wouldn’t be so uptight about everything_,” and he shook his head at his brother’s constant joking, even in the current situation.

Castiel followed Gabriel and the girls back out of the room, and so did Crowley.

“Mr. Masterson,” Gabriel stopped and turned to face Crowley again, “Your brother did sign a release, but circumstances being what they are, we won’t take terminal action without your approval.”

Crowley held out a packet of papers to Gabriel. His face, usually a mask of lighthearted mirth, fell a moment as he looked down at the papers in his hands. He looked concerned and conflicted. Castiel reached out to him with all of his being, silently pleading with him to not give them the okay. He needed him to have faith.

“I’ll think about it,” Gabriel said.

“Sometimes,” Crowley added, “It’s better to ask for God’s forgiveness and not prolong the inevitable.”

Gabriel looked up, a rare look of anger on his face as he leveled a glare on Crowley that should have had the doctor trembling in his expensive suit. “I said, I’ll think about it, bucko.”

Castiel breathed a sigh of relief. Gabriel always had looked out for him and he had never felt so grateful. He watched his brother get onto the elevator with his girls. Crowley stepped away, slinking back to his office, no doubt, and Castiel turned around surrounded by the busy staff, visitors and patients all moving through the hallways, a background of chatter permeating the air. Castiel looked left and right, as stare after stare looked right through him.

He was surrounded by people and yet had never felt so completely alone.


	9. Chapter 9

The apartment waited, dark and deserted, for someone to walk in and make it feel like a home again. The sun had set a little while back and the city lights filtered in gently once again, the full moon almost bright enough to cast blue moon shadow despite the golden streetlamps outside the building. The seconds ticked by one-by-one, booming into the deafening silence of the empty rooms, competing with the occasional dripping drop from the faucet in the bathroom that hadn’t quite been tightened enough in Dean’s rush to get going that morning.

The waiting emptiness and silence sighed with relief as the sound of a key in the lock signaled the occupant’s return.

“Hello?” Dean called out tentatively and emptiness and silence gathered around him in greeting as he entered the apartment and closed the door behind him.

Dean should have been relieved that there was no answering “Hello, Dean,” from the corner by the door. Just like he should have been happy that searching through the rooms revealed that Castiel’s spirit had done like he had said he would and stayed behind with his body. _I don’t know where else I belong_. The words had cut him deeply and though he had felt the pull to comfort him and had yearned in that moment to tell him, “You belong with me,” who was he to take Castiel away from his chance to crazy glue himself back into his own body?

A weariness took him over as he took off his jacket and hung it in the hallway closet out of sight with his kicked-off boots. He walked into the kitchen, rubbing at the back of his head, trying to brush away the look in Castiel’s larger than possible, bluer-than-blue eyes as they had said their goodbyes. The bag of potato chips was waiting for him in the fruit basket where he had left it when his latest grocery/junk food delivery had arrived the day before. He realized suddenly as he was about to tear open the bag, that he really didn’t feel like having chips. With a frown, he tossed them back into the metal mesh fruit basket and turned towards the fridge.

He reached for one of the beer bottles on the top shelf, needing to ease the ache in his heart, the hole left behind by… Jo. He shook his head, the words and names he had associated with that empty hollow feeling in his chest where his heart used to be just somehow feeling wrong; where before they had been the alpha and omega of his emotions and actions, now they barely nudged him for attention.

He straightened up with the beer in his hand and he looked at it with detachment. Just a few days ago, Dean would have told himself that he needed that beer, because he needed that numbing, but now… did he even want it?

He confusedly put the bottle back in the refrigerator and instead pulled out the egg carton and red bell pepper that had mysteriously appeared in his food order. He searched through the cupboards for a cutting board, knife, frying pan, and a spatula and before long he was full on Chef Emeril shaking spices onto his omelet and letting out an excited “Bam” as he transferred the finished product flawlessly onto a plate. He poured himself a glass of water and brought his feast over to the dining table, humming _Smoke on the Water_ slightly off key as he watched the heat rise from his creation in delicate tendrils.

He sat down, noticing for the first time the beautiful whorls of the wood grain of the table showing through the delicate varnish, and Dean suddenly looked around for something to put under his hot plate and cold glass to protect it. He found a cloth placemat in the drawer of a small buffet in one of the corners of the room. Settled in properly, he took a deeply satisfying first bite, and then quickly finished off his plate.

The quiet of the apartment pressed down on him again and a part of him considered turning on the television just so he could banish it for a time. He glanced around the shadows in the hall and in the further parts of the living room area cast by the bright lights in the kitchen and the muted light over the dining table – the only ones he had thought to turn on. He realized that he wasn’t put off by the dark and quiet as he had been for such a long time now. They were peaceful for the first time in many years and he breathed deeply before standing up to bring his plate to the sink.

Dean pondered this change in perspective as he washed his plate, wondering what had happened that his mind had shifted from dark and dismal to peaceful and calm. Without reaching any clear-cut conclusions, none at least that he wanted to entertain in the current circumstances, his thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a knock at the door. His stomach flipped and his heart leapt like excited puppies who thought their master was finally home as he quickly wiped his hands dry on the towel and headed to the door. In his excited anticipation, he pulled on the door and opened it wide, a smile already plastered on his face. It only slightly faltered when his eyes landed on the downstairs neighbour: tight skinny jeans, tight black top, bulging cleavage and in her hand…

“Is that pie?” Dean asked, looking at her expectantly, forgetting his momentary disappointment that she wasn’t a blue-eyed man in a stupid trench coat.

“Well that depends. Is it later yet?”

Dean’s mind scrambled to remember their earlier conversation, it seemed like so much had happened since he and Castiel had interviewed the neighbours and he remembered how he had declined dessert before on the pretext that he would take her up on it later.

“Definitely,” he said watching her mirror his grin with a coy pull of her lips.

He stepped aside and gestured for her to come in. Dean accepted the still warm pie and led her to the kitchen so he could cut them a couple wedges. Lydia took her piece and a proffered fork and leaned her hip against the island counter.

“Don’t you want to sit down?” Dean asked her, pointing to the dining room table on the other side of the wall.

“No. I’m good right here,” she smiled at him, curling up just one side of her mouth again.

Dean leaned his elbows down onto the counter and took a first bite of the flaking crust covered red cherry filling and he thought he had died and gone to Heaven.

“I knew you were a pie man,” Lydia said, turning to lean back against the counter, crossing her legs at the ankles and holding her plate in front of her.

“Damn straight,” he answered taking another large bite of pie.

Suddenly, Lydia burst into a genuine laugh and Dean looked up at her questioningly. “You’ve got some all over your chin. It’s the most… adorably gross thing I’ve ever seen.”

Dean smiled apologetically and reached for a paper towel. “Sorry, I get a little crazy with pie.”

“No, seriously. It’s refreshing. I swear, most of the men I’ve dated in this city were just a never-ending parade of cloned fakes. It’s nice to see someone be so natural.”

“Oh, well in that case, I’ve got plenty of bad manners I can showcase.”

Lydia started laughing again and he enjoyed watching the affected control she had exuded during their first meeting disappear. Dean went back to his pie, surprised to find himself glad of her friendly company. “So, dating right? Ugh.”

She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, “Well what’s the option? I don’t see myself settling down any time soon.”

Dean frowned, giving her a once over and guessing her age to be somewhere around his own thirty, maybe a little older depending on what was under the makeup. Weren’t women her age supposed to want to settle down and start families and all that? “That’s something you don’t hear every day.”

“Oh, what? You’re telling me that you’re ready for the big commit?”

Dean’s mind slingshot back to his wedding day, watching Jo come down the aisle towards him with her white mini-dress and crown of lily-of-the-valley in her blonde hair. “No,” he said pensively, licking the last of the cherry filling off his fork, “Not at the moment.”

He looked up at her in time to not be startled by the feel of her lips against his as she leaned over and captured his mouth in a searing kiss – _so much for friendly_, he found himself thinking. There was a split second when he considered letting her down easy and sending her on her way, blue eyes swimming to the forefront of his mind suddenly, but he banished the intruder with disappointed dismissal as he thought about the man calling him a slob. They had said their goodbyes, what more was left for them?

Dean pressed against the warm, inviting, flesh and blood woman and let his body remember the steps to this particular dance. Before he knew it, his over shirt had been pushed off his shoulders and lay crumpled on the ground and his black t-shirt had been pulled over his head to join it and Lydia was pulling at the buckle on his belt.

His certainty wavered and he laid his hands on top of hers stopping her in her attempt to remove his pants. “Wait,” he managed to get out before she covered his mouth with hers again, her arms wrapping around his shoulders as she pressed herself against his bare chest.

He took her face in his hands and pried her lips off him. “Wait,” he said again, trying to catch his breath and his disoriented thoughts.

“Do you need a minute?” she asked him, all big eyes and pouting lips.

“Maybe,” Dean said closing his eyes an instant.

“Alright,” she smiled at him, back to her coyness, “I’m going to go freshen up.”

Dean watched her sashay her way out of the kitchen and into the hallway and he breathed a sigh of relief. What had he gotten himself into now? he wondered. He bent down and picked up his plaid shirt from the ground, feeling a little exposed.

“Come on, Dean,” he chided himself as he walked out into the hallway, clutching his shirt in his hands, “Get your head in the game. She’s right there, willing… beyond willing,” he added with a shake of his head, “You gotta get in there and just…” Dean rocked his hips rolling from his heel onto his toes and swinging his arms towards the end of the hallway. Oh, who was he kidding? He took a step forward and—

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean let out a very undignified yelp as he jumped a foot in the air while turning on the spot to face where Castiel’s voice had come from.

“Castiel!” he exclaimed when his heart had stopped trying to escape his chest, and he felt his scalp tingle with his smile as he looked upon the man standing in front of him. “I didn’t think you were coming back. I thought you were gonna stay at the hospital, with your body.”

Dean frowned, a sudden thought going through his mind and he reached forward to prod Castiel in the shoulder. When his hand went right through him, he confirmed his suspicion that he was still not reconciled with his physical self.

Castiel was frowning at him. “Why are you half-naked?” he asked him, his gaze lingering on Dean’s bare torso. Dean looked down at himself and quickly shook out his plaid and threw it back on. He heard the clinking of his untied belt buckle and he quickly hooked it back up again, feeling a blush creep up his neck.

“Um… laundry,” he answered feeling foolish. “Why are you here?” Dean realized his tone sounded a little harsh when Castiel’s shoulders dipped slightly and he looked away. Dean scolded himself, feeling like the world’s biggest ass.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel said, looking alarmed, “I didn’t know what else to do. They’re trying to make my brother sign papers to take me off life support.”

“The hospital is?” Dean asked, feeling a slight panic rise in him. “They can’t do that!”

“I tried to tell them that, but nobody could hear me.” Castiel’s distress was almost palpable as he looked at Dean. “And I… I wanted to talk to… to you.”

Dean’s stomach did a funny little flip as Castiel’s blue eyes bore down into him. He wanted nothing more than to help him, to comfort him. He wanted to fix this, and they would fix it. “Castiel—”

“Oh Deeeeean!”

Dean’s stomach dropped into his shoes as he remembered Lydia. He froze on the spot as Castiel frowned and shifted his gaze to the hallway behind Dean. Slowly, his eyes shifted back to looking at Dean, glancing at his bare chest through his open shirt and the frown turned into surprise and then, Dean could swear he looked disappointed.

“Oh,” was all he said.

“That’s not what this looks like,” Dean scrambled to salvage what he could of the situation.

“It’s alright, Dean.”

“No, no no no… You don’t understand, she just showed up. We had pie. That’s all.”

“Shirtless.”

“No… I mean, yes… but that happened after… I… This isn’t what it seems, I promise,” Dean fumbled, trying to find a way to explain to Castiel that he had been about to send her home.

“Dean?” said Lydia from the end of the hall behind him. Castiel’s eyes shifted away from Dean again to the woman behind him and Dean squeezed his eyes shut. This was turning into a nightmare.

“In case you weren’t sure, what this looks like,” said Castiel as Dean opened his eyes again, “is that you have a naked woman in your bedroom and I’m getting in the way.”

Dean turned around, realizing that while he thought she had gone to the washroom, really, she had shed her clothes and was now standing in the bedroom doorway in nothing but the scantest black lace bra and thong. His brain went momentarily out of commission, white static drowning out any possible thought process.

“Is everything okay?” she asked him, walking up to him, her body moving gracefully.

“Uh, yeah, great,” he managed to say.

“I’m sorry if I’m coming on too strong. I just figured, two consenting adults… we could have a little fun.”

Dean started stammering again. He tore his eyes away from her and caught Castiel’s look of disappointment. He cast his eyes to the ceiling as he tried to think of how he could salvage this. How had his life turned into this circus?

“I hear you sometimes,” Lydia went on, coming to stand in front of him, laying her hands on his chest. “Up here. All alone. And I thought, maybe he’s lonely. I know I am.” Her hands smoothed over his skin and he trembled, the feel of her unfamiliar and unwanted.

Dean put his hands on Lydia’s shoulders, trying to control the situation and failing. He turned to look at Castiel. He was watching Lydia intently and the sadness Dean saw in his face had Dean enthralled in a way that even the naked woman in front of him couldn’t distract him from. He would do anything to make that sadness go away.

“Is it wrong? To want to be with someone?” she went on, clearly oblivious to his distraction as she wrapped her arms up around his neck. “To touch them? Feel their warmth when the night is cold?” Dean kept his eyes on Castiel, and her words seared into him as he imagined holding Castiel, his yearning flaring brightly as the man’s eyes shifted to his again and it felt like he was looking right into his soul.

“Dean,” Castiel said and he felt it inside like a flaming arrow melting his frozen heart and it thumped so loudly, he thought for sure the whole block could hear it. “It’s okay. Clearly, it’s what you both want.” Dean’s brain struggled to catch up to what he was saying, what who both wanted? “So, just go ahead. I’m sorry I interrupted.”

Lydia’s lips pressed against his jaw and suddenly the whole sordid situation hit him like a brick, and he pushed back against her shoulders, forcing her back to arm’s length.

“Cas, no. This isn’t what I want,” he said, choosing to ignore the woman, who probably already thought he was insane anyways, talking to himself. “What I want is… I want…” He couldn’t get it out as Castiel nodded at him, giving him a half smile that punched through his gut.

“It’s all good,” Lydia said as Castiel turned around and disappeared through the door that led to the roof. “You can call me Cass if you want. I like role playing.”

~

Castiel stood still in the rounded nook of the roof where the waist high ledge curved, following the line of the bow windows below. The moon glow flooded the usually dark roof, bathing the bare metal roofing in blue light that transformed even the most mundane little dead plant in a lonely terracotta pot into a piece of Faerie just waiting to be brought back to life. He turned his hands, observing how the moonbeams seemed to bend around him without touching him. Even the moon couldn’t see him, he thought forlornly. He looked out over the edge of the roof at the city and the bay beyond, glistening silver. How did that song go? Sitting on the dock of the Bay, watching the tide roll away, sitting on the dock of the Bay, wasting time.

He sensed Dean as he made his way across the rooftop towards him and he sighed.

“That was fast,” was all he could think of saying, unable to look at him. He felt withered inside, no more than that dead plant sitting on the skylight.

“Ha ha,” Dean said, without humour, “Come on, man. I kicked her out.”

Castiel nodded. This was where Dean would accuse him of interrupting his sex-capades. “What did you tell her?”

“That I was seeing someone.” Dean leaned back against the parapet facing him and Castiel glanced at him. Dean looked out at the city a self-satisfied pout on his face. “I didn’t tell her I was the only one who could.” Dean turned his mocking grin on him and Castiel tried to ignore the flutter in his chest.

He rolled his eyes and looked away. “Funny,” he grumbled.

Silence grew between them like a gulf separating him from Dean as he gazed off into faraway worlds leaving Castiel with his loneliness. He could remember now so much of his life and what he had felt and what had driven him to escape the suffocation he felt whenever he left the hustle and bustle of the hospital; what had made it a necessity to keep moving and keep working. He had told himself back then that the job was everything: nothing is more important than saving lives, but really, he had been hiding from this.

“You know,” Dean started, “I, uh… haven’t really been with anyone since, uh… Jo passed.”

Castiel couldn’t take his eyes off him as he fidgeted and hesitated through his words. Gone was the smug, hardened mask he usually wore. He looked everywhere but at Castiel as he went on.

“I was with her, when she died. All I remember is the blood. And she was so scared.” His voice broke and he stopped, re-centering himself. “She was scared, so I held her tight. I kissed her forehead and told her everything…” his voice cracked again but he kept going, his words shaky, “everything would be alright.” He paused again, trying to take a deep breath. “And she was just gone. I couldn’t save her.”

A single tear ran down Dean’s face as he looked up at the sky and Castiel watched helplessly as it disappeared under his jaw and tore through his own heart. Dean wiped away the moisture on his face and glanced at Castiel shyly.

“What was she like?” Castiel asked him.

Dean chuckled, a smile pulling at his lips. “Oh, you know. She was a major pain in the ass.” He laughed again, gazing into the past while Castiel waited patiently. “She was just so pig headed. You tell her to do something one way, and she’d make a point of doing it completely the opposite. If she got an idea in her head, nothing could change her mind. She was this fierce, tiny, blond ball of… pure stubbornness.” Dean’s smile faded from his face. “But she could also be so vulnerable. All I wanted to do was protect her. And in the end, I couldn’t even do that.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Dean.”

Dean looked at him and slowly nodded, before looking away again. Castiel was moved by how deeply Dean felt. He found himself wishing he had met someone who would have cared about him that way. Who would be left to cry for him when they unplugged him? Gabriel might miss him for a while, but he would move on quickly. He had to for his family.

Almost like Dean had read his mind, he looked back at him suddenly. “Your brother wouldn’t sign those papers, right?”

Castiel frowned; Dean’s eyes were boring into his so intently. “I don’t know. But it won’t matter soon anyways. Brain activity is decreasing every day.”

“Oh, that’s not so bad,” Dean said with a dismissive shrug of his shoulders. “Bring you down to my level.” He grinned again, confusing Castiel with his shifts in mood.

“You’re not dumb, Dean,” Castiel said as he looked at him. “A little lazy, maybe. Cute, but lazy.”

Castiel was mortified for a half-second after the words escaped his mouth, but it quickly turned to relief and amazement when Dean’s face morphed into a goofy, lop-sided grin. “Oh! Thank you.” Castiel couldn’t help but smile with him.

“I wasn’t always like this, you know,” Dean added after a moment, his face settling back into looking forlorn.

Castiel was instantly intrigued. “What were you like?”

Dean’s whole body looked energized suddenly, “Are you sticking around tonight?”

“If you want me to. I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

“I want to show you something, but we have to go in the morning.”

Castiel could feel that excitement from Dean, it was almost palpable, like when the air is heavy and charged before a thunderstorm, only he felt so light, almost euphoric. Dean smiled at him and it was like he was filled with helium. He suddenly turned, heading for the stairs that led back inside. “Where are you going?”

“Bed! It’s late, and I need my four hours before we go.”

Castiel followed him back into the apartment, and down the hallway as Dean headed for the bedroom. He stopped suddenly, his hand pushing the door open. He glanced back at Castiel with a frown. “You just going to watch me sleep, again? ‘Cause that’s creepy, remember?”

“Oh! Right,” Castiel said feeling awkward suddenly, “I’ll just wait here, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is my favourite chapter so far.  
::ssshhh:: don't tell the others.


	10. Chapter 10

The sky was a rare robin’s egg blue as the engine of the black Impala rumbled and purred making its way across Golden Gate Bridge and into Marin County’s rolling hills. Breathtaking shots of the San Francisco Bay appeared between the long stretches of deciduous and evergreen trees as the pavement of the 101 scrolled under the wheels at fifty-five miles per hour. The air blew into the car through the open driver’s window and swirled around the leather interior whipping Dean’s hair and shirt as he tapped his good mood on the steering wheel to the beat of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s _Freebird_. As far as Dean was concerned, the drive could have gone on forever. There was nothing that open miles of black top couldn’t fix. 

He had woken up that morning feeling like a thousand pounds had been lifted from his shoulders. He was loath to use words like “catharsis” because that was the kind of word Charlie liked to throw around, and like hell was he going to suddenly start spewing that head quack mind stuff. All he knew was that in that moment, he found himself _wanting_ to talk about Jo, and it had set him free; like the vice on his heart and soul had loosened, and the crippling pain of the memory had slipped away.

Dean glanced over at Castiel, sitting so quietly on the passenger’s side of the front bench seat. He liked the sight of the man looking serenely out at the passing scenery, a smile just barely tugging at his lips. He pulled off the main highway and soon they were driving down a private road lined with thick trees on either side. The treeline seemed to disappear suddenly as the road opened into a carefully manicured courtyard style driveway with a fountain crowded by red bougainvillea at its centre. The two-floor red brick mansion with pitched roofs that stood at the end of the driveway was imposing with wings that shot off the main house at different angles and tall two-floor windows overlooking the courtyard.

Dean pulled up to the front doors and cut the engine. He got out of the car, quickly joined by Castiel who was squinting up at the imposing structure. “What is this place?”

“It’s an estate. The guy’s in Hawaii this time of year.”

Castiel turned to look at him. “So, what are we doing here exactly?”

Dean laughed seeing Castiel’s suspicious frown. “We’re not robbing it, so you can just cool your horses. We’re not going inside. What I want to show you is this way.”

Dean moved off towards the side of the house, walking between the brick wall and the encroaching trees. When he reached the black wrought iron gate, he checked to see if Castiel was following. He had a scowl on his face like maybe he did think they were out there to rob the place after all. Dean smiled in anticipation of what would come next.

He pushed open the gate and gestured Castiel to go ahead of him so he could watch his reaction. He did not disappoint. As he walked into the estate’s sprawling gardens, Castiel went from a regular walk, to slow motion, to a full-on Dorothy “We’re not in Kansas anymore” open-mouthed, slow turn. Dean felt himself glowing on the inside seeing Castiel so captivated by the beauty all around him. And just as Castiel took in the garden, Dean took in Castiel. He couldn’t take his eyes off him, although he would have loved to lose the damn trench coat to get a better look at what he could only guess was a trim physique. Still, he liked the shape of him, even with the stupid coat.

Eventually, Castiel walked off around the bend of the path and Dean snapped out of his reverie and looked around like he was seeing the estate garden for the first time. Flowering shrubs and ornamental trees served as frame and backdrop to the curving stone path that coiled into a tight spiral; pink azaleas and blueblossoms, silver lupine and bright fushia all swirled together in controlled chaos.

“What is this place?” asked Castiel in a reverent whisper.

Dean smiled as he came to stand beside him at the centre of the spiral. “I made this.” Castiel turned his wonder-filled eyes on Dean as he continued. “You asked what I was like… before. This is what I did.” Dean gestured with his arm wide to the whole of the carefully planned garden. “I was a landscape architect. Even had my own company for a while.”

Dean felt like he would drown in Castiel’s eyes if he kept staring at him, the gleam of child-like amazement completely captivating. This close to him he could see the finer details of the man’s face and he committed them to memory wanting to remember this moment with Castiel in this place forever. What he said next was so completely improbable, though, that Castiel had to say it twice before Dean could even start to comprehend.

“I’ve been here before.”

“What? How?”

“This is going to sound really strange but—”

“Yeah… because everything up to now has been so normal,” Dean said, shaking his head.

Castiel looked around again. “I dreamed of this place. These flowers, everything.” Dean’s skin crawled, aware on a subconscious level of the forces pulling on the strings of their destinies. “It’s beautiful,” he said, turning his attention back to Dean and stepping closer, standing just within reach. “And you made this.”

Dean looked at the colourful flowers and the carefully designed pattern of the spiral and he could feel that joy he had felt, standing in that exact spot a lifetime ago, before any of it was there and seeing it in his mind, as clearly as he could see it now and as clearly as he could see Castiel. “Yeah, I did.”

“You have to promise me.” Castiel’s whole being suddenly radiated intensity and fervour and Dean trembled seeing the flame of it in his eyes. “Promise me you’ll make more gardens like this one. For me.” Dean took a shaky breath convinced that he would soon be consumed by that fire as it spread from Castiel to him. Almost as an after-thought, Castiel added, “And for the bees,” and the spell was broken; the tension suddenly dissipated as Dean started to laugh and Castiel smiled, the genuine joy in it almost as intoxicating as his previous intensity.

Castiel extended his right hand into the space between them and Dean looked down at it confused: it’s not like they could shake on it. Dean smiled though, thinking about what it would feel like to touch him, to feel the warmth of his skin, to wrap his fingers around something solid. With a wistful smile, Dean raised his hand to meet Castiel’s, but instead of clasping the empty air, he lined up their palms, so he wouldn’t have to feel the disappointing reminder of the other man’s lack of physical presence.

His palm tingled like tiny sparks were skittering across the surface of it. Dean smiled and looked up at Castiel. Their eyes locked and he felt it like a jolt that went from the top of his head and straight down to the base of his spine. The urge to close the distance between them and press his lips to his imperative to the point that Dean had to hold himself back.

“Dean… I—”

The jarring sound of Dean’s cell phone in his pocket grabbed him and sent him crashing back to Earth and this horrible reality where Castiel was not his, was nothing more than air and shadows and a comatose body on a hospital bed. The phone rang again and still Dean did nothing to stop its strident demand for attention.

Castiel pulled away his hand and Dean felt the loss of it like the shore misses the ebbing wave. “You should get that,” he said, and Dean finally pulled the phone out of his jeans.

“Yeah,” he answered abruptly.

“Dean, hi!” the ever enthusiastic and bubbly Donna responded. “I have some great news. You are going to flip your lid when I tell yah.”

“What is it?” He wanted nothing more than to go back to his day with Castiel.

“You are one lucky son of a gun, that’s what! The apartment’s yours! Whole kit-and-caboodle… including that couch you like.”

“The couch? What? Why?”

“Oh, it’s tragic really. Turns out the previous tenant you were askin’ me about? Coma, ufta! Family finally decided to pull the plug. Anyhoo! They’re gonna give you a nice long lease. Great, huh?”

Dean felt like his whole body had turned to water and then ice. He looked up at Castiel who was waiting patiently for Dean to be done his call. This couldn’t be happening.

“So, yeah, I’ll set up the meeting to sign the lease. Just shoot a hoot if you need me!”

Dean pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it, his brain all static and bubble wrap.

“What’s wrong?”

Dean looked away from the phone and focused on Castiel. Like hell was he letting this happen without a goddamn fight. “We gotta go talk to your brother,” he said, putting his phone away and turning back towards the gate without waiting for a response.

Castiel fell in step with him quickly. “Why are we talking to my brother?”

“Because…” Dean said stopping suddenly and turning to look at him, his eyes registering how confused, but also, how worried he looked. “We have to stop him from making a huge mistake.”

It was clear to Dean that Castiel understood the situation perfectly from the way his eyes widened before his lips pursed into a thin line. “How are you going to do that? Why would he listen to a complete stranger?”

Dean nodded while he thought about it, rushing the last few feet to the car and settling himself behind the wheel. It certainly seemed like an indomitable task, but he just needed to get him to listen to him. What could possibly get his attention? Dean turned the car around and sped back down the private road heading back to San Francisco.

“Why don’t we try telling him the truth?” Dean asked, brainstorming with Castiel, the atmosphere in the car a whole pendulum swing away from what it had been on the way out to the estate.

“Why would he believe you? Would you? Some person comes up to you and claims he’s been seeing your comatose brother, and you just believe them?”

“No! Come on man, I’m not dumb.”

“Neither is Gabriel.”

“Alright, so we need proof.”

“He can’t see or sense me, I already tried it.”

“You’re his brother! You gotta have some dirt on him.”

“Um… when we were kids, he was always getting in trouble. He loved to prank assholes, he used to refer to it as “just desserts”.”

Dean glanced at Castiel long enough to see the scowl on his face. Dean shook his head, “That’s too vague, it’s gotta be something no one else knows.”

There was silence in the passenger seat while Dean wove around slowing cars.

“He starred in a couple pornos when he was in college.”

“Are you kidding me? Start with THAT next time! Come on,” Dean half laughed.

“Yeah, but it’s not like it’s a secret. He’s actually quite proud of those films.”

Dean mumbled a curse under his breath, holding back a hurtful comment about Castiel not trying hard enough. He was stressed, he had to calm down and focus. He noticed Castiel’s hand resting on the seat between them and Dean reached down and laid his on top of it… or through it more likely, but he wasn’t in the mood to worry about that.

“Oh!” Castiel exclaimed suddenly, “He kissed his best friend Celeste five minutes before his wedding. I only know because I walked in on them.”

Dean grinned, “Alright then! I can work with that.”

“He’d been secretly in love with her for years, but she’s gay.”

“Oh, this just keeps getting better.”

Dean could feel a plan starting to form along with the hope that came of the certainty that they could not fail. He was going to save Castiel and then together they would figure out how to put him back together again.

~

Gabriel’s house was one of hundreds of stand-alone houses in Noe Valley packed so closely to its neighbours that there was barely enough space for a regular sized man to walk between them. The entire block of the street was lined on one side with identical models of narrow, two-floor, flat-roofed Victorians with protruding bay windows to add to the square footage inside. Across the street was a small park built into an escarpment of the hill the area was known for and which made it impossible to build on.

Dean once again was oblivious to the minor miracle that occurred in the form of an empty space on the side of the road just large enough for him to skillfully maneuver the Impala into. As he swung the door closed with a whine and a squeak, he forced himself to stop and breathe. They were in dire straits, and nothing was more important than to have Castiel’s brother believe him. And he wouldn’t if he didn’t appear cool and logical.

Castiel had turned quiet and his frown had been in place since they had crossed the Golden Gate Bridge back into San Francisco. They didn’t need to talk, the plan had been set, the details would be ironed out in the moment, and Dean wasn’t one to put up with useless chatter, but he was worried about him. He wished he knew the magic words to make everything alright again, so he could see Castiel’s wonder and joy from the garden, but what could someone possibly say to the spirit of a man in a coma who just found out his breaths were counted.

They stood side-by-side outside the solid wooden front door and Dean turned to look at him as they waited for someone to answer the doorbell. His distinctive Slavic features were all the more emphasized from this view, especially with his eyebrows knitted together as they were. “Everything’s going to be alright,” he told him. Castiel just turned his head to look at him, his expression unreadable as he nodded.

The man who answered the door was shorter and slimmer than Castiel, with longish sable hair and olivine eyes, and as serious as Castiel’s face seemed to be, his brother’s looked like it was constantly plotting some sort of mischief.

“Um, hi. I’m Dean Winchester. You don’t know me, but I know your brother, Castiel?” The man’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “I was wondering if we could talk?”

“Yeah, of course. Come on in.”

Dean stepped inside the house and on through to the kitchen at the end of the hardwood hallway, one side of which had stairs leading up to the second floor.

“You’ll have to excuse the mess; it’s been a rough couple of days and it’s amazing how quickly things get out of hand with two little monsters running around.”

Dean looked around at the barely controlled mayhem of the kitchen and dining room: the floor was a minefield of scattered dolls and ponies, forgotten crayons and half-finished drawings. More drawings and finger paintings covered every inch of available wall space, going far beyond the confines of the traditional refrigerator door, although Dean could see there were plenty on there too. Sitting in the midst of it all, at a pink, child-sized Fisher Price table with matching chairs were a princess and a fairy having imaginary tea out of a plastic tea pot.

“What are they doing here?” Castiel asked alarmed as he saw his nieces, “They’re supposed to be in school.”

“So, how did you know my brother?”

Dean opened his mouth to give Gabriel the line they had decided would sum up the situation best, but Castiel cut him off: “Lie! You can’t talk about me like this with the girls there. It’ll terrify them.”

“We’re seeing each other,” Dean blurted out, the only thing he could think of.

Gabriel’s face lost its subtle smile as he sized him up. “Impossible.”

“Dean, seriously?”

“I mean, before… the accident… obviously,” Dean fumbled, trying to recover.

“Nope,” Gabriel said, flat out, “Sorry, bucko. Not buying it.”

“It was new,” he said lamely, sensing before it was out, that Gabriel could see right through him.

“I don’t know why you’re insisting on this. I spoke to my brother hours before he went into a permanent coma. If he had been seeing someone, he would’ve told me.”

“Maybe he didn’t tell you everything,” Dean added, digging himself deeper.

“Dean, stop it. This isn’t going anywhere.”

“Okay! Sorry. Seeing each other is maybe the wrong word for it. We live in the same building. We were getting… close…er, um. It’s not like we had gone on a date or anything… uh. Damnit,” he finished under his breath as he ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

He felt a tiny, warm hand wrap around his fingers, staining them with the mystery stickiness of a child at play. “Come have tea with us, sir!” she said to him affecting a British accent.

Dean found himself pulled towards one of the tiny chairs and foisted into it by the all-powerful will of a six-year-old child in a princess dress. He continued to be impotent as the blonde girl took the plastic tiara out of her tangled hair and placed it on his head while the younger one placed a cup and saucer in front of him and poured him some imaginary tea.

“Claire, Alexis, this isn’t a good time, girls. He was just about to leave.”

“But daddy! He’s Unca Castel’s frien’. He has to stay fo’ tea,” explained the dark-haired fairy reasonably, making her father throw his hands in the air and roll his eyes.

Castiel had walked over to the table and sat himself down on the last remaining chair, watching his nieces lovingly as they chattered away in an incomprehensible babble. Dean stole quick glances at him, unable to ignore the sadness in his face as he did. He was not going to give up that easily.

“Listen, Gabriel,” he started, Castiel’s brother crossing his arms and glaring at him, “How I know your brother isn’t important. But please, you have to believe me when I say that Castiel means a lot to me. He… he saved me. I was dead, and he brought me back to life.”

“I’m having a hard time taking you seriously with that crown.” Gabriel cracked a little smile, his anger subsiding. “Look, clearly he meant a lot to you. Trust me, I get it, Baby Bro… He was special. He helped a lot of people in his life.”

“Alex?” Castiel suddenly said, from Dean’s right. “Can you see me?”

Dean turned his head in time to see the green bouncing fairy wings run away from the table and behind the open pantry door. He turned back to Gabriel though, his conversation with him what was most important right now.

“Listen, Dean? This is sweet and all, but I don’t understand what you’re doing here.”

The little fairy came tearing back, drawing all eyes to her as she plopped cookies in front of Dean, her sister and herself, then a fourth one right in front of Castiel. His eyes met Castiel’s for a moment.

“It’s like she knows I’m here,” Castiel’s wonder in his voice as he shifted his attention back to his nieces.

Dean turned back to look at Gabriel, determined to make his case. He could do this. For Castiel. “I know about his situation. And I know that it’s got to be hard, keeping the hope alive for his recovery. But you can’t give up now. Your brother is fighting, and it’s the fight of his life. You can’t pull the plug on him, it’d be like cutting the legs out from under him. He’s gotta keep fighting, so he can come back to us.”

Dean was aware that he’d gotten a little carried away and he risked a glance at Castiel, worried about his reaction, but he was just watching him with his eyes wide, not saying a word. Not another second to spare, Dean met Gabriel’s gaze. The sadness in his face was heartbreaking and Dean was sure he wouldn’t like what was coming next.

“It’s too late. I already signed the release form.”

“Gabriel, no!” cried out Castiel as he stood up from the table and walked over to stand by his brother, “Can’t you feel me? I’m right here!”

Dean unbent himself from the chair more slowly and came to stand next to Castiel.

“We’re turning off life support tomorrow at noon, when the girls are at school,” Gabriel continued, lowering his voice with a glance at the girls still having tea and blabbing away, unconcerned by the grown ups and their troubles. “These past few months have been really hard on them and the whole family. It’s time.”

“You’re wrong,” Dean’s voice shook slightly. “This is a huge mistake.”

Gabriel’s tone changed, a hardness in his eyes that showed he was losing his patience with him. “Listen Dean-o, this is what he wanted. And I’ve spent my whole life being a selfish jerk, and Castiel, he just went with it, because he was such a good little brother. It’s time he got what he wanted. I’m honoring his wishes.”

Castiel just stood staring at Gabriel looking completely crestfallen. No words could describe the horror and chest clenching pain that ripped through Dean in that moment, once again unable to help him, unable to save him from this cruel twist of fate.

“But it’s NOT what he wants!” Dean burst out angrily.

“Dean, it’s okay,” Castiel said, his voice soft and resigned as he fixed his brother sadly.

“Like hell it is,” Dean answered him. “Listen, chump. I’ve got Castiel right here, okay? And for some dumbass reason, I’m the only one who can see and hear him, alright? But he’s there.”

“Dean, that’s enough,” Castiel growled at him.

“So, I came here to be like… a translator, or whatever, so he can tell you that he doesn’t want to be unplugged!”

Gabriel’s expression was closed-off as he stood and stared at Dean. Dean turned to look at Castiel full on, now that the cat was out of the bag, and Castiel gave him a tight half-smile. Another long moment passed in silence as the chatter from playtime wafted over the scene, and Dean waited.

“Castiel is here,” Gabriel finally said.

“Yes,” Dean answered, feeling hope beat against the inside of his chest like a trapped butterfly.

“Like, right here,” he said waving his hand off to the side.

“Uh… yeah, a little to the right, but yeah.”

Gabriel paused a moment more. “Okie dokie. Can you just, give me a teeny tiny second here?”

Gabriel walked around Dean and crouched down beside the table where his daughters had pulled out more paper and were busy drawing. Dean turned to face Castiel again, feeling that hope fan into excitement.

“We got him! He’ll listen to us now. You’re not getting unplugged!”

“I don’t know, Dean.” Castiel looked off towards the table, walking over slowly.

Dean followed him, curious what got his attention. On the table, in the spot where the oldest niece had been sitting was a wax crayon drawing. Castiel was staring down at it. Dean picked it up to get a closer look. It was two filled-out stick men, the one on the right had black hair and blue eyes and wore a tan coat, the one on the left had green eyes and brown hair and had the same coloured shirt Dean was wearing. The two stick figures were holding hands. Dean’s scalp tingled with equal parts uneasiness and affection. He glanced up at Castiel who was looking at him intensely again, the lines around his eyes betraying his worry. Dean smiled at him. He reached forward and held his hand beside Castiel’s willing his confidence to be transferred to him through the energy that flowed between them.

“We got this!”

Gabriel came back into the room and Castiel turned to watch him. Dean glanced at the drawing in his hand and he quickly folded it in four and stuck it in the back pocket of his jeans. When he looked around so he could talk with Gabriel, it was to find that the other man had pulled a long knife from the butcher block and came right at him, slashing the air.

“Holy sh—!” Dean jumped back and tripped on the plastic chair, sending him sprawling on his ass. He scurried away from the madman with the knife. “What the hell?” he yelled at him.

“Get out of my house!”

“Gabriel, please, just listen—”

“Get out of here before I carve my initials in your crazy, lying hide!”

“I swear I’m not lying! I know you kissed Celeste five minutes before your wedding!” he blurted out in a last ditch yet half-assed effort to get him to believe him.

Gabriel swung the blade again, slashing just in front of him and yelling his outrage. Dean scrambled to his feet and ran out of the house, pelted by plastic ponies and Barbie dolls until he was out and jumping down the front stairs in threes.

Gabriel stood in the hallway, his chest heaving from the anger and adrenaline surging through him. He heard the old stairs creak and he turned to see Rowena making her way down: graceful as always in her three-inch stilettos, her dancer’s body wrapped tightly in an elegant black dress, her thick and loose red curls bobbing around her shoulders and down her back.

“What was all that noise?” she asked him, glancing at the door in confusion.

“Nothing. Just some lunatic trying to sell me something.”

“Oh! That’s so odd. For a moment, I was certain your brother was here.”

Gabriel stared at her, his eyes wide, the breath knocked out of his chest. “What?”

Rowena looked at him, and her heavily make-uped eyes softened as she did. She put her hand on his cheek and smiled. “Don’t worry about it, dear.”


	11. Chapter 11

The play park across the street from Gabriel’s was small, but it was green in a neighbourhood otherwise choked out by buildings packed tightly together at impossible angles and paved roads like rolling waves. It had a breathtaking view of the city stretched out below it: leafy trees with a 3-D puzzle beyond their branches. A cold breeze blew in from the distant bay as the sun played hide-and-seek amongst the cotton clouds above. Parents called their playing children to add a layer to their backs so they wouldn’t get cold swinging their feet and sliding on their bums. Castiel stood watching them, neither warm nor cold, and unseen by those he watched.

“You look like a pervert in that coat, watching a bunch of kids,” Dean said from behind him, sounding slightly winded from his escape.

Castiel didn’t look at him, lost as he was in his contemplation of his situation.

“What’re you thinking about?”

“This. Life,” he said gesturing to the children at play, “Life is precious, Dean. This experience, it’s changed my view on so many things. Family, happiness, love… I never really got to experience them for myself. Regret I feel deeply though. I was so busy making a living, I forgot to live my life.” He turned his head to look at Dean standing beside him staring at him like he was weirdness incarnate. He would never know what it was to love and be loved by a man, by this man, who felt so deeply and completely. “Too late now,” he said softly into the breeze, his words carried off to distant places where they could not be heard by anyone anyways.

“Cas, come on! You can’t give up.”

Castiel felt the pull of a smile tug at him. “Cas?”

Dean shuffled and looked away, “Yeah, sorry. I know you don’t like it.”

“It’s growing on me,” he said, glancing at Dean shyly as he stared back, his eyes wide, the tip of his tongue darting out to moisten his lips. Castiel felt himself fixate on the man’s plump lower lip and had to tear his gaze away quickly in case Dean noticed. He reminded himself again that Dean was unattainable… on so many levels, not least of which was the physical impossibility of a relationship with him. Paired with incompatible sexual preferences, and Castiel was forced again to concede that pining after him would get him nowhere good.

“Damnit!” Dean exclaimed, startling Castiel out of his momentary self-pity. “We’ll try something else. Jody! We’ll go see your friend Jody again. We can make her understand!”

Castiel frowned, “Jody won’t hesitate to lock you up in the psych ward.”

Dean stood beside him heaving, “This _can’t_ be it! There has to be someone in this stupid city who can help us!” _Us? _Pondered Castiel to himself as he stared blankly at Dean, his mind a confusion of white noise. Then Dean snapped his fingers, his whole face lighting up in a moment of epiphany. “I know who we can go see!”

Eyes alight with renewed excitement and enthusiasm, Dean turned on his heels and headed back up the road to where the sleek black car was waiting for its passengers, both the one with a body and the one without. Castiel barely had time to wonder where they were going before Dean pulled up in front of the Abandoned Planet Bookstore.

“What are we doing here?”

“This is where that guy, Sam, works.”

“Sam with the Ouija board? I don’t see how he can help me. He couldn’t help before.”

“Well, at least he doesn’t think I’m looney with a side of crazy,” he said, holding the door open for him.

Castiel looked around at the shelves of books and followed Dean as he made a straight line for the more open part of the store which was set up with tables overflowing with precariously stacked metaphysical devices and gimmicks. Castiel looked around semi-curiously then drew up to the desk behind which the tall man was sitting studying something in his hand. Castiel narrowed his eyes when he recognized the deck of cards from before.

Dean called out to him and Sam looked up, shaking the stray strands out of his face before smiling widely at Dean and… was he looking right at Castiel?

“Nice to see you two are getting along,” he said. Castiel and Dean looked at each other, their surprise and confusion mirrored in each other’s faces.

“Wait,” Dean said, “Can you see him too, now?”

“Uh, no,” Sam said, rubbing the back of his head, “but I saw you coming.” He pointed to the instruments on the table beside Castiel. He turned at the same time as Dean and realized that every precious stone hanging from a pendulum was pointing right at him.

“Useful,” Dean said with a nod, “I guess that makes you attractive, right Cas?”

That self-satisfied grin flashed on Dean’s face and Castiel shook his head, “Really, Dean?”

From his desk, Sam coughed and when Castiel looked up he was looking at a card in his hand with a smile stretching his face. “What?” asked Dean.

Sam dropped the card face-up on the desk and Castiel and Dean leaned in to look at it more closely. The card had two flames on it, one blue and one green and they were entwined in a way that evoked something very erotic. He was lost in contemplating the dancing flames: they almost looked like they were moving together the more he watched. And then he remembered how that deck of cards worked and what it had just revealed about his desires and he straightened up quickly, feeling like a teenager being called out in high school for having a crush.

Dean was staring at him, he could feel it, and he found that he could not meet his gaze, looking everywhere but at him. It was only when he started talking, addressing Sam directly, that Castiel chanced a glance.

“We managed to figure out what happened to him. Turns out you were right about him not being dead.”

“That’s great!”

“Yeah, no. He’s in a coma. And his family’s pulling the plug… tomorrow!”

“Oh! Not so great.”

“I’m not letting that happen, okay? So, you gotta help me out here. There’s gotta be a spell, or a chant or a ritual… something, that’s going to let him genie his way back into his body.”

“You’re going at this the wrong way. You’re not asking the right questions,” Sam said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the desk. He stared pensively at the empty air above the green blotter for a moment before sitting back again. “So, get this,” he said, pulling a thick, leather-bound tome from a nearby leaning tower. “According to the lore, spirits sometimes choose to stay behind due to, quote-unquote, unfinished business—"

“I looked at all that crap the first time I came in here,” Dean’s tone was increasingly angry, then he turned towards Castiel, “What unfinished business?”

Castiel didn’t know how to answer. Although he had recovered nearly all his memories, there was nothing he could think of that would constitute _unfinished_, unless…

“Besides,” Dean went on, turning back to face Sam, leaning his hands on the edge of the desk. “If we fix his unfinished business, won’t that just make him go poof? What if I want him to stay?” Dean cleared his throat and kept going more calmly. “How is it, that I can see him when no one else does?”

“Now you’re asking the right question.”

“Yeah? Well what’s the right answer then, jackass?”

“According to the lore,” Sam said again, his finger dancing down another page of the book as he leafed through it quickly looking for something. “Spirits attach themselves to people and objects they care about. That they have a connection with.” He looked up at Dean expectantly.

“That makes no sense, I never met him before.”

Sam shrugged, closing the book. “Maybe it’s fate.”

“I don’t believe in fate.”

With a sigh and a raise of his eyebrows, Sam opened the book again. “According to the lore—”

“I don’t give a crap about the lore!” Dean said loudly, slamming the book shut again. “Tell me how to fix this!”

Sam pulled back his hands in non-confrontation, “Sorry, man.”

“Dean,” Castiel said, realizing that even if at first, Dean could not possibly have been what had kept him stuck to this place, these feelings, this growing awareness of what had been missing in his life, and focusing that desire onto Dean… If Castiel had such a thing as unfinished business, this was it. And for too many reasons to count, it would remain that way. “Let’s just go, Dean. Please,” he added when the man leveled his fierce glare on him. It really was uncanny how the green on that card was an exact match for those eyes.

All the fight drained out of Dean, leaving behind sadness and failure as he hunched over the desk taking a deep breath. Castiel reached his hand out tentatively and laid it on Dean’s shoulder, stopping before he passed right through him. The man relaxed and then straightened and turned, making his way back to the main door and out on the sidewalk.

The instruments on the tables fell back to their original neutral positions and stilled. Sam’s eyes were drawn to the card sitting on his desk, the twin flames of the soulmates writhing together until they were but one.

“Well, that was something!” he said, with a pensive nod. He gathered the cards and put them back in their protective case. “Just so you know, these things really give me the creeps.”

~

Dean burst through the door removing his jacket and boots, his mind a swirl of conflicting thoughts and emotions while his chest constricted his breathing. “That crazy hipster doesn’t know what he’s talking about!” He moved about the apartment rambling, his restlessness stopping him from settling down in one place and turning his steps to pacing. “I mean, what does he know, huh? According to the lore… I tell you where he can stick his stupid lore!” He felt like his blood was boiling.

“And you! You’re no help!” he turned his frustrations on Castiel, calling out to him from the hallway. “You could’ve helped me out with your brother a bit at least! But no! You choose that exact moment to roll over and—”

Dean stopped his words as he turned the corner into the living room and spotted Castiel. The fight, anger, frustration just drained out of him, leaving him cold and helpless in the face of Castiel’s despair. He was sitting on the couch lining the bow window staring at an open book on the coffee table in front of him. His arm was resting on the wood, his fingers brushing the edges of the pages, as though getting ready to turn then… only his fingers weren’t brushing the paper, they were going right through it, unable to pinch and manipulate it.

Castiel pulled his hand back, keeping his elbows on his knees and folding his hands under his chin. “Maybe, it’s better this way,” he said, no emotion behind the deep scruff of his voice.

Dean sat down on the couch beside him. “Don’t say that. We’ll figure this out. We got to keep grinding. That’s how we win this.”

“This isn’t a game. This is my life.”

“Exactly! Which is why we do not give up.”

“I believe in fate, Dean. I know there’s a reason why you’re the only one who can see me,” Castiel said, turning his gaze on Dean and locking him in place. “Why you’re here, in this apartment. Why that man collapsed at the restaurant, right when we were the only ones who could save him. Why I dreamed of your garden. It’s all connected. So there must also be a reason why I can’t go back to my body. I just wish I understood why.”

“If you’re right, and fate is a real thing and not just a series of coincidences, then maybe… I was meant to find you.”

Dean almost cringed from the cheesiness of the line, but he had meant it. There was something about Castiel that called out to him, and there was very little else Dean wanted to do but answer that call. He wasn’t so blind to what was happening to him as he had been at first. He was falling for Castiel. Maybe it was already too late for his poor heart.

Castiel broke away from the stare, looking off to the side towards the window. He frowned and Dean turned to look at what he had seen. Dean’s stomach churned a little when he remembered what it was that he had put there the night before.

“Where did you get this?” Castiel asked him.

Dean scratched at his head with a grimace before answering. “I took it from the hospital.” He smiled again as he looked at the photograph of Castiel pulling that silly face, Gabriel’s arm around his shoulders. “Of course, that was before I found out how much of a dick your brother is.”

Castiel turned his confusion back to Dean, “Why did you take it?”

Dean considered the question a moment before leaning forward and pulling the paper out of his back pocket. “For the same reason that I kept this.” He unfolded the drawing that Castiel’s niece had drawn of them holding hands. “I wanted something… to remember you. Something I could have in case… you go away.”

“I don’t understand,” Castiel said, his forehead still wrinkled with his confusion. Dean could feel his own insecurities trying to sway him, trying to stop him from going too far for him to save face if he was wrong. “You married a woman… the neighbour downstairs… “

Dean breathed a silent sigh as he decided to put all his chips in. “The heart wants, what it wants, Cas. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Castiel whispered, looking away, his wide-eyed expression unreadable.

The longer the silence stretched between them, the more exposed Dean felt. He had told Castiel the truth of what had been building inside of him. He was vulnerable, sitting a foot from him. He wanted to take his hand, or pull him into his arms, or press his lips to his, but Castiel’s silence filled him with doubt. The longer it went the more pathetic he felt.

“Please, Cas,” he said, unable to take much more of the man’s pondering. He held out his hand, palm facing him, like he wanted a high five. “Take me out of my misery here. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Castiel’s eyes returned to his and he gently raised his own hand to line it up palm-to-palm. “I’m thinking…” Dean’s whole body felt like it was shaking as he waited through Castiel’s interminable silence. “I’m thinking, that if this is my last night, I don’t want to spend it working so hard to save a life I never lived. I want to experience life, Dean.”

Dean shook off his confused disappointment. Clearly, he didn’t feel the same way he did, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to give Castiel the best damn life he could in whatever spec of time he had left. Dean jumped from the couch with a slap to his knees. “Alright! Let’s go live a little! Where do you want to go? You wanna see the sunrise in Bali? Plant your toes in the sand? You wanna go broke in Vegas? Sky-dive in Hawaii? Whatever it is, let’s just go! I’ll take you anywhere you want… that also takes Mastercard.”

Castiel’s face broke into a wide smile as he looked up at Dean with wonder scintillating in his eyes and a deep chuckle escaped through his lips and warmed the pit of Dean’s stomach. Castiel shook his head slowly, “Those things all sound nice, but it’s not what I want most.”

Dean sat back down on the couch. “So, what do you want to do?” he asked him gently, and when Castiel looked away, Dean raised his hand and curled his fingers under Castiel’s chin, feeling that current, that energy flowing between them all up and down his arm. Castiel turned his head back to look at him, and still Dean kept his hand on him, it was almost like he could feel him.

“Tell me.”

Castiel’s eyes bore into him and he nearly forgot to breathe from the intensity of that stare. It went so much further than just looking into his eyes, it felt like Castiel was looking into his soul and it was setting off all sorts of delightful signals. It was terrifying. It was wonderful. “If I could right now, I’d kiss you,” Dean said, the moment for half-truths and embarrassment long past and he wanted, more than anything, for Castiel to be open and honest with him too.

“What I would like, is to spend what… little time I have left… with you. Just _be_ with you. Maybe even fall asleep feeling you beside me.”

Dean could feel his insides trembling with the emotions, fresh and wild, as they tore through him and he let out a shaky breath. The die had been well and truly cast now. His heart felt like it would swell and thump right out of his chest, and he was very glad that Castiel couldn’t feel how sweaty his palms suddenly were. He was having a hard time controlling all the emotions rushing through him in that moment; happiness, desire and love at the forefront, but not enough to quell the sadness and grief that he knew were sure to follow in the aftermath of what would happen the following day. He had given himself, heart and soul, to a dead man walking and he hoped his heart would mend again after watching someone else he cared deeply about disappear into non-existence. The pain rivaled the happiness and Dean stood up from the couch, holding his hand out to Castiel. “You got it,” was all he said as Castiel followed him out into the hall and then into the bedroom.

Dean slipped out of his plaid overshirt and tossed it on the back of a nearby chair before throwing himself into the middle of the mattress. He stretched himself out on his back, giving Castiel the chance to leave the doorsill and come into the room slowly. He leaned up onto his elbows and watched Castiel walk up to the bed. With a playful smirk he asked him: “I don’t suppose losing the coat is possible, huh?”

Castiel looked down at himself fully dressed in enough layers to survive the coldest of San Francisco days. “I don’t think I can even remove my shoes.”

Dean shrugged, “Alright then, get your butt over here.” He rolled onto his side and patted the mattress beside him. Castiel lay down on his side facing him. Barely half a foot of air was all that separated them and yet Castiel did nothing to close the gap. Dean liked looking at him, enjoyed the shape of him laying beside him, liked the shade of his eyes in the filtered city light coming in through the curtainless bay window, loved the undisciplined strands of his hair sticking up in the front.

He was looking worried again. “Are you nervous?” Dean asked him.

“A little,” Castiel admitted.

“Why? I can’t even touch you.”

“You can’t touch me, but I feel you. It’s like you’re touching my core… whatever part of me this… “ he gestured to himself from head to toe, “… is, it feels you. Your… essence. We connect and it’s like my whole being is singing, or shaking. Sometimes it feels like I’ll explode if you touch me. But then, when you don’t, it’s worse.”

Dean reached forward and held his hand to Castiel’s cheek, feeling that exchange of energy, or whatever it was, and he knew what Castiel meant; his core vibrating from his contact with him. He was getting lost in the blue of Castiel’s eyes: he felt he would fall into them and never emerge. His body felt like it was floating in their intensity; both captive and set free. He was drowning in Castiel, feeling him penetrate his body and mind as he closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the feel of him.

“I keep thinking,” Castiel whispered, his voice loud like thunder and shaking through him, “That if you could ever really touch me… I might wake up from all of this.”

Dean stretched his neck forward and reached for him with his lips and met no soft, fleshy resistance, only that tingle like the shadow of a touch, like the sun kissing his skin on a hot day, or the sting of cold rain in January. Soon his whole body felt like it was on fire and he yearned to be consumed by it completely. He sighed and shook as their souls writhed and fused. The smell of rosemary and lightning wafted over him, intoxicating him and he knew without a doubt that it was Castiel and he breathed him in as their souls became one.


	12. Chapter 12

First, the sky went from a darkness so complete, only the brightest of the star specs could shine through. All at once it was aglow with a fresh dawn. It turned lighter still, the wisps of clouds floating like strands of cotton candy turning shades of pink. The heavens caught fire, golden light flooded the streets one by one; the fog confined to floating thinly above the water of the bay. Windows reflected the light blindingly and every piece of metal turned into beacons.

As the sun rose ever higher, light danced into the room touching windowsills and furniture, a sleeping body and wrinkled bed sheets. It caressed a scruffy jaw of growing stubble and a splash of freckles on a cheek. Dark eyelashes fluttered and twitched as he let out a groan and nuzzled his face into the pillow. Arms curled under his head: shapely muscles and broad shoulders framing unruly light brown hair that stuck out every which way.

Castiel drank it all in, living in the moment and feeling every passing second, and remembering the pure, raw bliss of the night before. It had been like nothing he had ever experienced with another human being. It went far beyond desire and gratification; they had connected on a level that he hadn’t even known was possible. He had heard the expression “touching one’s soul,” but it had always been a figure of speech, exaggerated by romantics and part of the delusion of Hallmark moments – moments that had always failed to feel real to Castiel, who had never felt anything but detachment with his past lovers. Sex had felt hollow, like it was just another expectation the world rested on the shoulders of a young, handsome, doctor-to-be. Yet now that he had experienced it, he realized he had been craving that connection for a long time with no real hope that it was out there.

Dean stirred again, turning his head towards the empty side of the bed and shifting and stretching himself lithely on his stomach. Castiel found himself wishing he were back in his body just so he could-- Dean groaned and with a sigh like a sweet kiss said his name, making Castiel feel light with his happiness.

“Cas?” Dean’s voice was more confused than the contented sigh had been, but before Castiel could react, Dean startled up, jerking himself into a sitting position, looking around wildly. “Castiel?”

“I’m here, Dean,” he said softly from the corner where he sat on the padded recliner.

Dean dropped back to the pillow with a sigh of relief, his chest heaving. Castiel smiled at him and then stared out the window again to see the sky finally turn bright blue as the sun rose beyond the frame of the window. “I’ve never just watched the sunrise before.”

Dean jumped out of bed like he had been electrified, drawing Castiel’s frown. He fished around at his feet and picked up his discarded jeans, sticking his feet into them and yanking them up with a couple awkward hops.

“I have a plan, Cas!” he announced as he hurriedly tied his jeans and belt.

“A plan for what?”

“You might be resigned to watching the sunrise and experiencing things for the last time, but what I felt last night? I’m not giving that up without a goddamn fight.”

Castiel felt himself flutter, Dean’s excitement catching even if he didn’t share his optimism. “What are you going to do?”

Dean grabbed a burgundy shirt from the closet and threw it on over his black t-shirt, One arm through, he struggled with the other for a moment as he said, as calmly as one would ask to pass the butter, “I’m gonna steal your body.”

With a devilish smile and a wild gleam in his eye, Dean walked out of the room. Castiel thought about blocking his path and suddenly he was standing in the middle of the hallway facing him. Dean looked behind himself as he slowed down. “Hey! You’re getting really good at that.”

“Dean, this is insane. You can’t just steal my body.”

He adjusted his shirt collar and stood before Castiel, their eyes nearly level. He raised his hand and brushed the back of his fingers against Castiel’s jaw, it was like sparks were igniting his whole being, a touch as simple as that one. “Did you hear what I told your brother? About you bringing me back to life?”

“I heard some of it; it was all very poetic, and I assumed you were just telling him anything to get his attention.”

“It was the truth. All of it. I was dead, Cas. I couldn’t feel anything, I was drowning in my own uselessness.”

“You were rather pathetic.”

“Shut up,” Dean said with a half smile. “Then you showed up, and I felt—”

“Angry.”

“I felt. You made me feel again. You brought me back. And if I lose you now… I can’t go back to before, Cas.” Dean’s hands framed his face and Castiel felt that connection, that bond that somehow linked them, and his thoughts were fuzzy with the feel of him. “You’re like my guardian angel, and you pulled me out of Hell. You saved me, and now it’s my turn to save you.” Dean’s eyes were feverish with his words, and his eyes dropped to his lips. “You have no idea how much I wish I could kiss you right now,” he said, barely above a whisper, before taking a step back and pulling his hands away.

Castiel closed his eyes and sighed, unsure what emotion he was trying to release: relief from the fuzziness that had invaded him, loss at not feeling Dean anymore, joy that he wanted to kiss him, or sorrow that he would never feel the press of his lips.

When Castiel opened his eyes again, Dean had that mischievous grin in place, and he twitched his eyebrows once before moving around Castiel and grabbing his boots from the closet. “Dean,” he said, but the man just stuck his feet into his boots and headed straight out of the apartment.

Castiel rolled his eyes. With a blink he was on the street, intercepting Dean on his way to his car.

“Dean, stop. Think about this. You’ll go to jail.”

Dean turned on him, the fever in his eyes that much closer to madness than mischief. “So what? They pull your plug and that’s it. You’re gone. You think I’ll care where I’ll be? This way, it’ll buy us some more time to figure this thing out. All I want is more time Cas. We can fix this.”

“We’re not talking about a faulty engine. My body is only being kept alive by those machines. How do you think you’re going to take my body away? How will my body stay alive?”

“I have no clue,” Dean said, getting into the car. Castiel appeared in the passenger seat and Dean turned towards him, like he had known that he would be sitting right there when he turned. “But you can help me.”

“I don’t think you realize how complex the issue is. The things you’d have to know to make this work—”

“You know them!” Dean said, turning on the seat to face Castiel. “You’ll be right there to help me. You can tell me everything I need to do.”

His hard-headed determinedness was awe inspiring, terrifying and dumbfounding. To think that he would risk, life and limb to save him – that he was willing to go as far as he was on the off chance that they could reconcile him to his body.

“Please, Castiel. Help me do this.”

Castiel slowly nodded, and Dean’s face lit up with his happiness. He turned the key in the ignition and the car lurched into drive. “Dean, you’re going to need more help than I can give you. This isn’t a one-man job. Who do you know who’d help you steal a body?”

Castiel should have been comforted by the pull of Dean’s lips into another wide smile as he drove through an intersection, but he wasn’t. He had gone completely insane. This venture was far from guaranteed, and it would have some serious consequences should they fail. Castiel had nothing to lose, he would be dead at noon if they did nothing. But Dean, his life would be forever changed if they tried this and failed. So many things could go wrong. And yet Castiel found himself desperately hoping he would succeed as they sped towards this unknown individual who would risk it all to help Dean.

~

Dean jerked the heavy steering wheel to the left and then back to the right, barely making it around the parked car that had suddenly thrown its door open, forcing Dean to swerve into oncoming traffic. He could have stopped, if he hadn’t been barreling down Turk Boulevard at forty-five miles an hour. He saw the street name he was looking for, and turned the wheel sharply, cutting off someone on his left as he cut through the intersection, narrowly avoiding the cross traffic.

“You do realize that this is how I ended up in a coma?”

Dean glanced back towards the open part of the van where Castiel was sitting in a jumper seat barely affected by the van’s wild rocking. Charlie, however, was plastered to the passenger door holding on to handle and dashboard and looking a little pale.

“Um, Dean? Mind telling me what the hell is going on?”

Dean swerved again. “We’re picking up someone from the hospital. Can’t be late.”

“Is the plan to get there by ambulance? Because that’s definitely where this is headed. Aaah!” Charlie threw her arms up to cover her face.

“Tell me you told her what you’re doing! You can’t just involve someone like this without telling them.”

“Sh!”

“Why are you shushing me? You’re the one driving like a friggin’ maniac! I’m too cute to die!”

“This woman looks very familiar.”

“You saw her at the bar,” Dean mumbled out of the corner of his mouth, driving around a slower driver and slamming the heel of his hand into the horn.

“Who did I see at the bar? The person we’re picking up?” Charlie asked.

“What? Oh yeah, exactly.” Dean glanced at her sideways. “Hold on,” he added, almost as an afterthought as he tore around another corner, throwing Charlie against the door again.

“Dean! Seriously! Would you slow down? You’re going to get us killed, psycho!”

“I can’t. We’ve already lost so much time. Gotta get there like now.”

“Jesus, Dean! I think they’ll understand if you’re a few minutes late. No one is ever on time. It’s San Francisco!”

Dean noticed Charlie’s fingers gripping the dashboard hard enough to turn white as the van’s wheels left the ground completely. Dean’s stomach floated into his lungs. _Oh shit_. And then the rubber hit the pavement with a squeal and Dean eased off the accelerator a little.

His mind was still going a mile a minute though, repeating over and over the steps to his plan:

Get a van.

Charlie.

Get to the hospital.

Steal Castiel’s body.

That last step was maybe a little vague, and maybe a little ambitious, but he couldn’t dwell on that. He repeated the steps again. And again.

“You have to tell her,” Castiel insisted from the back of the van.

“Later,” Dean answered in a strained whisper.

“Later, what?” asked Charlie, turning to look at him more directly now that the mad speeding was getting more reasonable.

“What?” reacted Dean, having a hard time keeping track of who was talking to him, who was supposed to be in the van and who was in the van and no one else could see or hear.

“Huh”

Dean found himself glancing at her repeatedly as she stared at him, suspicion stamped on her face.

“Level with me here: did your imaginary friend come out to play?”

Dean didn’t answer.

“Are you at, like Navi, ‘Hey, listen!’-level voices? Or has it evolved to straight up Deadpool arguing with his split personalities?”

“You’re mixing media here. That’s not up to your usual standards, Charlie.”

“Screw you, Winchester. I’m a little stressed out, thank you very much.”

Dean turned one last corner and went careening into the hospital drop off zone to the soundtrack of Charlie yelling “Whoa!” repeatedly and at an increasingly higher pitch, while he narrowly avoided a couple of pedestrians heading inside.

“Dean,” came Castiel’s gruff voice from behind him, “Just because people are visiting the hospital, doesn’t mean they want to end up as critical care patients.”

Dean eased off the gas, pulled the van up to a curb in the pick-up/drop-off zone, and flicked on the hazard lights. He jumped out of the rented van like it was on fire and made his way into the main entrance followed by Charlie who had to trot to keep up with his long strides.

Following Castiel’s directions, Dean rushed up to the third floor, choosing to avoid the slow elevator and taking the stairs two at a time. He barely registered Charlie’s huffing complaints. Castiel’s voice was all he listened to, the words themselves translating directly into actions like they were but one mind.

Dean walked through the door marked _Personnel Only_ like he belonged there. He grabbed a nearby utility cart and started piling supplies onto the top shelf like he was going through a medical grocery list.

“Dean! Please tell me we’re not in here stealing narcotics!” said Charlie.

“You’re going to need a blood pressure cuff,” Castiel told him.

He grabbed one off the shelf and added it to the cart.

“And a portable ventilator,” said Castiel.

“What does that look like?”

“It’s the yellow thing there.”

“Got it.”

“Dean,” Charlie whispered angrily as she grabbed his arm and turned him around to face her. “If you don’t tell me what the hell is going on right now, I am walking out.”

Castiel was standing behind Charlie and off to the side; he looked at him over her head. Moving had pushed back the growing urgency of the situation and the buzzing anxiety of what would happen if he failed, but Charlie’s halt on the proceedings brought all of that back to the forefront. He could feel his stomach drop out like he was going downhill on a roller coaster as Castiel’s eyes connected with his.

Then Charlie grabbed him by the chin and forced him to look at her again. “Dean Winchester, swear to God, if you don’t start talking, I’m leaving.”

“Okay, but hear me out alright?”

“I’m all ears.” She took a step back and crossed her arms.

Dean glanced up at Castiel, who frowned at him. “All right. So, my imaginary friend? Not imaginary. He’s actually the spirit of this guy who’s in a coma. But I’m the only one who can see or hear him.”

“Right.”

“I swear, Charlie, I’m not insane. He’s really real. We have this connection. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“Okay, Dean. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take a walk upstairs. There are people there who can help you.”

Castiel had a smug, I-told-you-so look. Dean narrowed his eyes at him before turning back to Charlie. “We don’t have time for this. They’re getting ready to pull his plug. In thirty minutes, he’s gonna be gone forever. I need your help.”

“You need my help for what exactly?”

“I need to take his body. Get him as far away as possible so we can have more time to figure out how to get him back in there.” The silence was thicker than the summer morning fog as Dean begged Charlie with every microscopic particle of his being. “Say something.”

Charlie threw her arms in the air, her eyes wild, “What do you expect me to say? My best friend is having a psychotic break and I can’t do a thing to help because he’s not accepting that it’s happening at all!”

“This isn’t working, Dean,” Castiel said with a slump of his tan covered shoulders.

Dean felt despair crawling up his throat and he choked it down before it got to his face. “We can’t give up, Cas.”

Charlie was looking behind her but turned back to Dean when there was nothing there for her to look at. “You’re trying to make me believe that this Cas person is standing behind me, like, right now.”

Dean didn’t take his eyes off Castiel . “Yes.” His breath hitched in his chest as he felt every second being wasted with this argument. Why couldn’t they understand that every moment spent talking about this brought them closer to being too late to save him?

“Okay. If he’s really there, ask him what I’m doing: rock, paper or scissors?”

Castiel looked down at Charlie’s hands behind her back. “Rock,” he told Dean and Dean repeated it.

Charlie looked surprised for a moment, but then quickly narrowed her eyes. Castiel called out “Scissors,” and Dean repeated it again, feeling smug. Charlie turned to look behind her again, but quickly came back. “Paper,” said Castiel. That was quickly followed by scissors again and then rock. Each time Dean told Charlie and every time he did, she looked that much more agitated and freaked out.

“Now she’s flipping me off,” Castiel said with a roll of his eyes.

“Seriously, Charlie? Don’t flip him off.”

The look of pure dumfounded confusion on her face would have been funny under other circumstances, but Dean was having a hard time finding humour in anything at the moment.

“Okay, so, sometimes people experiencing extreme stress can have psychic moments, it’s not unheard of,” Charlie was mumbling, looking between Dean and the empty space behind her.

“Charlie, please. You have to believe me. I need to save him.”

“All right, but seriously, dude, even if this is all really happening, do you have any idea what you’re risking for this guy? Come on, what the hell?”

“I get it. Okay? I get it. If I screw up and this goes south, I’m done.”

“So why? For god’s sake, why would you even risk it?”

He had no words. How could he even begin to explain to her that he and Castiel were bound to each other by something so much stronger than anything he had ever experienced with another person ever, including his deceased wife? How could he tell her that as he looked into Castiel’s intense blue eyes he would stop breathing if those eyes were no longer there? That if he lost Castiel, it would be like losing such a large piece of himself he could never recover? Castiel was looking back at him and he was so sad and scared.

“Whoa,” Charlie said, and Dean dragged his stare away from Castiel to look at her again. Her eyebrows were lost under her red bangs as she stared at him with perfectly round eyes. “Wait a minute. Are you in love with him?”

Was he? Could this bond, this need for Castiel be summed up so simply? Could such a small word possibly encompass all of what he felt inside? Could he really say that he wasn’t in love with Castiel? No. He couldn’t, because it would not be true. He looked back up at Castiel and nodded slowly.

“I can’t picture my life without him. I don’t want to go back to that darkness.”

Castiel’s chest heaved under all his layers of clothing and the lights suddenly flared brightly in the supply room. They grew ever-brighter, and Dean smiled as the nearest bulb exploded, and Charlie yelped in surprise ducking down protecting her head with her arms. “What the H?!”

Dean laughed. “He does that.” He moved past Charlie, walking up to Castiel and standing right in front of him holding up his left hand. Castiel lined up his palm with Dean’s and held it there. Dean leaned forward a bit until he could feel the gentle prickling of Castiel against his forehead. He closed his eyes, just trying to hold on to the feel of him.

“Swoon,” Charlie said, her voice sounding breathy. Then she cleared her throat. “Well… If I’m going to Hell anyways just because I’m gay, I might as well add body snatching to the list, really make it worth it.”

“You’ll help us?”

“Whatever you have must be contagious because yeah, I’ll help you.”

“Thank you, Charlie,” Dean turned and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly.

“Okay! Alright! Enough with the mushy stuff. Damn my hopelessly romantic heart. Let’s go!

~

Castiel poked his head back through the solid wall into the storage room where Dean and Charlie were waiting with the cart loaded with the gear they would need to transfer Castiel’s body to a gurney. “All clear,” he said, and they opened the door and crept out into the hallway.

They wheeled the cart down the hallway. Castiel disappeared and reappeared nearly instantly. “There’s an empty gurney in the next room.”

They pushed the cart into the designated room and following Castiel’s instructions, they set up the equipment on the gurney.

Dean could feel Castiel watching him. He looked up, noticing Castiel’s pensive expression. “What’s wrong?” he asked him as he looped a tube around the handrail for later.

“Did you mean it?” Castiel asked him, his eyes fixed and unwavering.

Dean knew exactly what Castiel was referring to and he smiled. “With every fiber of my soul.”

“What?” asked Charlie looking up. She looked away again quickly though. “Oh! You’re talking to-- nevermind.” She continued under her breath, “If it wasn’t so completely weird, I’d think it was sweet.”

Charlie found a couple of lab coats hanging behind the door and she and Dean threw them on over their regular clothes. Everything in place and ready, they pushed the gurney out and through to the hall, heading for Castiel’s room.

“Thank her for me. She must be a really good friend to agree to do this. I’m grateful.”

“We really appreciate this, Charlie.”

“Oh, I am not doing this for you.”

Dean cast a startled glance at her.

“One day, I’m gonna need help moving a body, and when that day comes, I don’t want to hear any shit from you.”

Dean and Castiel exchanged arched eyebrows as the tiny redhead stared ahead, dead serious. She was this small, cute-as-a-button and compassionate person and Dean had known her for years. Who would have thought that she was hiding fifty shades of psycho under there?

By some masterful stroke of old-fashioned good luck, no one noticed them as the rolled through the hallways, eyes too busy reading charts, or talking to stunned-looking family members, or suddenly turning in the opposite direction upon remembering an important task.

Dean pushed the door open and pulled the gurney up to line it up with the bed on which Castiel’s body lay.

“You need to be gentle when you transfer my body over.”

“Got it,” Dean said, pulling the thin hospital blanket off him.

“Oh my God! Dean!” Charlie exclaimed, drawing Dean’s eyes momentarily to see that she was looking down at Castiel with a look of total shock.

“I know, handsome right?”

“That’s really sweet,” Castiel said with a shake of his head, “but we have to hurry. Gabriel could be here any minute.”

“No, this is him!” Charlie told him, incapable of keeping the surprise out of her voice, though she was speaking softly.

“Him who?”

“This is the guy you were supposed to meet that night! But you bailed.”

“I was gonna meet Castiel?” Dean’s brain was buzzing again, impotent in the face of fate’s master plan.

“And he didn’t make it either because he was in an accident.” Horror mixed with realization on Charlie’s face as she looked down on Castiel’s comatose body.

Dean turned back towards Castiel. “We were supposed to meet.”

“Is that why…” Castiel gestured to himself, and Dean just shook his head. _How is any of this possible?_

Dean addressed Charlie again, trying to understand how pieces of so many different puzzles were fitting together. “How do you know him?”

“I’m friends with his brother, Gabe. We were kids together.”

“I knew I had seen her before!” suddenly exclaimed Castiel moving closer to her. “That’s Celeste!”

Dean let out a startled laugh and pointed at the redhead. “Charlie is Celeste?”

Charlie startled back away from the bed. “What did you just call me? I changed my name. How do you even know that name?” Her voice was getting shrill again.

“You’re the girl Gabriel tongued at his wedding?”

“That is definitely her.”

“How did you know that?”

“I told you; it’s Castiel.”

“It’s really- He’s really- It’s all for real isn’t it? He’s actually here?” Her eyes scanned the room. Then, she turned to the body on the bed, and Dean could see the very moment that she made up her mind and was all in. “What are you waiting for? I can’t let them kill Gabe’s little brother!”

Dean hurried to put down the bars on both the bed and the gurney. He slid his arms under Castiel’s shoulders carefully, hyper aware of all the tubes and wires connected to his body and that could not be dislodged.

“Grab his legs,” he told Charlie. He was gentle as he lifted him into his arms; his body underweight and frail. Even so, Dean only saw perfection. Charlie guided his legs onto the gurney, and Dean set him back down. He pulled his arms free and allowed himself a moment to caress his face gently; he was solid, rugged in his palm. He looked up at Castiel’s spirit, caught up in the moment as he leaned his head to the side, his eyes closed as though he were leaning into Dean’s touch.

The _click_ of the turning handle coming from the room’s door made everyone freeze.

A cell phone rang.

“Yes?” said a man’s voice as Dean stared at the doorway where he could just see the corner of the partly open door. His heart pumped like he was running a 100-yard dash, while his brain and body froze just waiting for the moment the game would be over. “I’m already here,” the man said, a distinctive English accent sounding confused and a little frustrated.

Then the door closed again, and Dean breathed.

“It’s Crowley. He’s the one who’s going to turn off the machines,” Castiel said.

“What? No! He’s almost fifteen minutes early, son of a bitch!”

“Doesn’t change the fact that when he’s done with his call, he’s coming in here.”

Dean nodded and moved around Castiel’s body, heading for the door.

“Dean? What are you doing?” asked Charlie in a strained voice.

“You get him plugged to the new equipment and ready to roll.” Dean pointed to Charlie and then nodded to Castiel. “I’m gonna stall the flaming douche. You’re with me.”

Dean moved confidently towards the door, his mind calm like a stream running over polished pebbles. Castiel moved behind him feeding him information that he absorbed as best he could getting ready for the most important con of his life. The man in the white lab coat turned when he heard the door open behind him. He had receding, chestnut coloured hair and a stylish three-day beard. He looked at Dean with expectant, arched eyebrows.

“His name is Dr. MacLeod. Tell him you’re a doctor.”

“Dr. MacLeod, hi. I’m Dr. Dean,” he cast about quickly for a likely alias, his mind jumping to one name: “Page.”

Dean stuck out his hand, and the man shook it, losing the surprise and replacing it with sly suspicion. Dean renewed his outward self-confidence.

“Tell him you’re a special consultant from—”

“I’m a special consultant from PAC medical,” Dean told him calmly, folding his hands in front of him while he continued to feed Crowley the lies Castiel spun. He barely knew what he was saying, the words flowing automatically from his mouth as though he were nothing more than a conduit for Castiel’s words. When they finally stopped and Crowley just stood there staring at him, he wondered if anything he had said had made sense.

“Pardon me, Doctor, but I received no such instructions,” he finally said.

“There’s new evidence that full functionality can be restored,” Castiel spoke through Dean again, “We need to run some tests.”

“Who, exactly, is ‘we’ in this scenario?”

“My team is standing by downstairs, with a signed order from Dr. Shurley, of course.”

Another pause, and this time Dean dared to check his watch like he was the one whose time was being wasted.

“Of course, you won’t mind if I confirm with Dr. Shurley?”

“Oh yeah! Of course,” he continued a little more calmly, “Go right ahead. I’m sure he’s in his office; you should go see him. We’ll wait right here.”

Dean hoped the man would leave now, but his stomach dropped when Crowley pulled his phone from his coat pocket. No. No, if he got Shurley on the phone the game was up. Dean could feel the panic rising in him as he sensed the bear trap clamping around his ankle. Crowley smiled a taut little smile at him while he waited for Shurley to answer, the phone to his ear.

They could not fail, and that meant Crowley couldn’t talk to Shurley.

His fist went flying before he even knew he was going to do it, but it was too late to hold back, and he turned his body into the punch as it connected with the doctor’s nose. He distinctly felt something yield and crack.

“Dean! What did you do?” Castiel stared down as the man collapsed and groaned on the ground.

“He wasn’t going for it, what else was I supposed to do?” Dean growled. He looked up to see that as invisible as he and Charlie had been bringing the gurney to Castiel’s room, his decking a doctor was not going unnoticed.

He shoved open the door. “Time to roll, Charlie!”

“Yeah, great, let’s get the hell out of here!”

She pushed the gurney with Castiel on it, a sheet modestly tucked around him, towards the door. Dean grabbed the railing and helped pull him out of the room. The gurney free, Dean took over pushing it as Charlie grabbed the side to help maneuver, her head turning to look at the man on the ground. “Dude! Did you fracking hit a doctor?”

“Yeah, so let’s not stick around, right?”

“That is really cool, if not mostly terrifying.”

“Yeah, it’s great,” Dean mumbled, and he pushed Castiel down the hallway away from where staff was coming to help Crowley. Castiel navigated them through the hospital’s twisting hallways and sharp corners as they tried to make it to an exit that wasn’t blocked by people trying to stop them. Dean’s boots slipped on the floor as he turned away and down the hall when a security man pushed through the double doors Castiel had told him to go through to escape the wing.

Another turn, and Dean spotted the bank of elevators that would take them down to the parked van. He pushed harder, seeing the doors open. Another security guard, talking into the radio receiver clipped to his shoulder, spotted them and broke into a run to intercept them. Dean had no choice but to dig in his heels and use his weight to bring the gurney to a stop pulling back so he could change directions again.

“Hold it!” called out the guard as he realized what he was doing. Charlie let go of the railing and with a cry of “For the glory of Moondoor!” she rushed the guard and threw herself at the man in a rugby tackle worthy of the toughest flanker. Caught by surprise, the guard hardly even blocked the attack, and they both went flying sideways into the elevator just as the doors closed, stopping the guard from coming back out right away.

Dean stared at the closed doors, a steady whistling sound in his ears as his mind registered just how completely screwed he was. He couldn’t just wait for another elevator, and he pushed against the slippery tiles to get Castiel’s body moving again; he would have to try for the next wing again. As he moved into the open area near the nurses’ station, he realized just how trapped he was. He stopped the momentum again, spinning the gurney as he turned to look down each of the five hallways branching out from the centre. Guards and nurses and attendants, visitors and patients blocked their escape and Dean repeated, “No,” with each turn as the panic took hold. As he came to a full stop, his eyes landed on Crowley, holding a bloodstained tissue to his face. Beside him stood Jody and Gabriel.

He looked up at Castiel’s spirit standing across from Dean, his inert body between them.

“What do I do?” Dean pleaded with him, “Tell me what to do, Cas!”

“It’s too late,” Castiel said calmly as he stared down at himself, wide-eyed, scared. “My breathing tube is gone.”

Fear gripped Dean as he looked down and realized that it was true, there was nothing left of the breathing apparatus that had been forcing air into Castiel’s lungs. In his attempt to save him, he had unplugged him as surely as if Crowley had done it. He felt his heart squeezed, and he could barely breathe.

“Dean,” said Castiel faintly, and to Dean’s horror, when he looked up, he could see through him; Castiel was disappearing. “I think I’m dying,” he said, his voice level.

“No! No, we just need more time. Tell me what to do!”

“You need to go.”

“No, Cas, I’m not leaving you.”

“Listen to me, Dean,” Castiel said, his eyes holding Dean’s captive, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. All he could do was cling stupidly to the bed railing while Castiel spoke his last words, “Knowing you, it’s been the best part of my life. What we shared, it changed me. I love you. I will always love you, but please, run. Save yourself. I don’t want you to go to prison just because you were trying to help me.”

“Cas, no. What am I supposed to do without you?”

“Make new gardens. Keep fighting the darkness by making more beauty in the world. Always keep fighting. For me.”

The shrill sound of the portable heart monitor stabbed Dean’s ears and heart. The flat line on the screen as Castiel faded ever more snapped Dean out of his haze.

“No, Castiel! Stay with me!”

He did the only thing he could think of, more instinct than plan, as he turned away from the wavering spirit and looked to the flesh and blood man on the gurney. He leaned down over him, taking his face in his hand as his lips closed onto his, firm and warm. Dean was locked in that moment, the terrible sound of the flat line screaming in his ears, his own heart still and empty as his angel slipped away from him. He breathed into his mouth, a single tear breaking free from his eyelashes and landing on Castiel’s cheek as he leaned his forehead against his, feeling his time slipping away.

He was numb, his body turning to rubber as the two security guards pulled him off Castiel and dragged him back, slamming his body to the ground and pinning him there. His eyes landed on the last of Castiel’s fading outline as he looked down at his body with surprised blue eyes as he held his fingers to his lips. And then he was gone.

“Castiel!” Dean shouted, the cry tearing through him and he didn’t even fight the two men holding him down as the world collapsed around him.


	13. Chapter 13

That tone.

That single note held forever and constant. Neither growing louder, nor fainter. Just… there… always. Forever.

Darkness. Suffocating. Can’t breathe. Weight crushing his chest.

Hollow. Dead.

He was dead.

That tone.

Then, silence. A hush like the darkness held its breath waiting. _Waiting for what?_

_Th-thump. Beep._ Like lightning and thunder. _Th-thump. Beep._ All around him. _Th-thump. Beep._ Inside him.

Scratch in his throat. Fire. Mouth dry. Nothing to swallow. Pain.

_Th-thump. Beep._

What was that light in the distance? _Th-thump. Beep._ Or was it right in his face?

Muffled voices. _Th-thump. Beep._ Cotton in his ears._ Th-thump. Beep._ Gotta get out of here.

Castiel opened his eyes and was assaulted by the over brightness of the solid white light above him. He closed his eyes; red behind his eyelids. Voices boomed in his ears and that sharp beeping sound, both familiar and alien, was growing more steadily frequent, insistent, impossible to ignore.

He tried to open his eyes again, and this time vague outlines of people’s heads swam into view, distorted and out of focus. The voices made his head throb, and he winced. The scratch in his dry throat was like sandpaper and every attempt to swallow the complete lack of moisture in his mouth made his head want to explode. His throat closed-up on him and for a moment he couldn’t breathe, and he coughed weakly, unable to clear it, his body worn out.

A cool hand touched his face and he turned into the touch before it pulled away. He tried to focus on the shape beside him as it blocked out the light and leaned over him.

“—stiel,” the voice was suddenly clear as a bell and he recognized his brother.

“Gabriel?” he tried to say, unsure if anything came out at all.

His head throbbed and swelled, the beeping of the monitor beside him drilling into his ear drum. Couldn’t they put it on silent? _Why am I lying down?_ he wondered. His hand found a metal railing to hold onto and he tried to sit up. His muscles screamed in protest and he fell back to the mattress with a groan.

“It’s okay, little bro,” Gabriel quietly shushed like when he’d had nightmares as a child. “Don’t move, everything’s okay.”

Castiel finally blinked away the pain in his eyes and everything came into focus all at once: the bed railing, the portable heart rate monitor clamped to it, Jody, Gabriel and Rowena standing beside the bed and a multitude of others standing further back as he looked around. His vision blurred again as a spike stabbed his right temple.

“I think I hit my head,” he said, the words scraping his raw throat and beating against his skull.

Gabriel’s face came back into focus; he looked halfway between smiling and crying as he looked down at him. Castiel’s confusion grew; Gabriel didn’t cry. He focused on Jody who was also looking weepy as she smiled at him widely. Had someone died? Beyond Jody he could recognize the blue walls of his ward in St-Matthews, but why was he lying down on the job? Why are there so many people standing around staring at him?

“It’s okay,” said Gabriel, drawing his attention again.

Rowena was standing by his shoulder but unlike everyone else, she wasn’t staring at him. She was looking across the room. She nodded at someone on his other side and Castiel turned his head at the man wearing a white lab coat as he approached the bed. Castiel frowned again.

“Hey,” he said, as he leaned over the raised railing of the bed.

“Hello,” Castiel answered, he did not know this doctor who was smiling down at him, his green eyes dancing as he looked at him, his brown hair disheveled.

“We did it, Cas.”

Clearly, there was a mix up. Though the man clearly thought he knew him, Castiel didn’t. “I’m sorry,” he stammered as he tried to articulate his confusion. “I…”

Castiel turned to look at his brother for an explanation. “It’s Dean,” Gabriel told him. “You don’t remember Dean?”

Dean? The name held no meaning for him as he cast about his jumbled memories for something to connect the man to. He turned to look at him again. The man’s joy had disappeared from his face and had been replaced by a very familiar expression he had seen often on patients and families: pain.

“The apartment,” he said barely above a whisper so only Castiel could hear. “The rooftop. The garden.”

None of what he said made any sense, and the more the man looked at him, the more uncomfortable he got. There was something about the way he looked at him, something intimate and desperate. The man’s hand left the guardrail and reached forward like he was going to take his hand and Castiel was overwhelmed by the certainty that if this man touched him, something terrible would happen. He shifted his arm away and turned to look at Gabriel again.

Why was this stranger making him so nervous?

Gabriel leaned towards him, glancing back and forth between him and the stranger. “You don’t remember him at all?”

Castiel shook his head and felt comforted by the terrifying expression in Gabriel’s normally playful face as he aimed his anger at the stranger.

“I don’t know what game you’re playing at, but I think you should leave.”

Castiel watched as the man straightened and took a step back from the bed. He nodded, his face and posture a picture of distress. He turned and pushed through the gathered crowd. When Castiel turned back to his family, he registered only joy and relief as Jody checked his vitals and the equipment. He could see now that Meg and Lisa were also there, familiar faces in the crowd. Everyone was smiling at him. Except Rowena, who was gazing off in the direction the stranger had gone, thoughtful and cheerless.


	14. Chapter 14

A cool breeze blew through the mostly green leaves of the trees that covered a vast expanse of the oasis-like Golden Gate Park. The sounds of children at play and idle chatter punctuated the relative stillness and peace of the island forest, framed into unnatural straight edges by the surrounding city streets. Open plains of carefully manicured lawns stretched out in undulating hills flooded by the warming touch of the afternoon sunlight. A family of four sat on a checkered blanket pulling sandwiches and cut vegetables from a carefully packed beach bag. A group of thirty-somethings ran along the asphalt paths pushing strollers and idly chatting about mortgages and summer vacations. A gaggle of college students lay under trees surrounded by books and notes while they horsed around. A couple sat together at the base of a tree, lip-locked and oblivious to the world around them.

The breeze blew again, picking up a rogue paper and swirling it around in a natural tango. The paper swooped low to the ground then swirled high on an updraft, twisting gracefully as it made its way to the very edge of the park where a man sat on a bench alone. The paper twirled playfully around him and went in for a hug, plastering itself to his face.

Dean Winchester startled and grabbed at the thin sheet. As he tore it away from his face his eyes caught the edge of the words written on the flyer and he startled again: Castiel. Heart pounding, he looked at it more closely only to realize it was an advertisement for Castle Storage. He balled the flyer up and tossed it aside catching sanctimonious glares thrown at him from passing pedestrians. Dean leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and tore at his hair.

Broken and ruined, the flyer could no longer dance with the wind and it sat on the lawn discarded, ignored, and forgotten.

~

Golden Gate Park was home to many gardens. Cultured roses and tailored shrubs and all the glory of the botanical gardens often played host to various events throughout the year. Music from concerts in the park often drifted over into the peaceful gardens, and swarms of tourists would fill the spaces between the flowers and along the paths throughout the year whenever festivals came to town, which was always. There was never a dull moment in a city that loved its festivals.

Castiel liked the Japanese Tea Garden the best, with the beauty of the architectural accents and traditional flowers, ornamental trees and shrubs, the many koi ponds and quietly burbling creeks, he found it beautiful and peaceful as he strolled along the paths, tendrils of fog criss-crossing them in various places.

A breeze picked up and the smell of the flowers drifted over him. He was filled with a strange nostalgia as a particularly delicate perfume pulled at memories buried so deeply that he couldn’t quite reach them. It filled him with a sense of peace mixed with an odd yearning he wouldn’t quite place.

From around a bend, Alex came running and he caught her as she threw herself into his arms, the carefree happiness of a four-year-old impossible to resist. He smiled as she babbled about the fish in the pond and the dragonfly that had landed on her arm. As they passed an empty park bench, Castiel was struck once again with that feeling of emptiness, or loss.

Rowena came up beside him and laid her hand on his arm gently pulling him from his reverie. She smiled at him, though her eyes were sad, secretive as Castiel was struck with the feeling that his sister-in-law knew something that had to do with him but chose to keep her secrets.

Gabriel and Claire caught up to the group and together they continued on their way, leaving behind the bench to wait for someone else to fill the empty seat.

~

The sky was a slate grey as the clouds threatened to unleash the rain they contained on the concerned pedestrians who were hurrying to their destinations before they got soaked.

Dean stood apart from the crowd as the heavens opened and the cold drops came falling to the cement sidewalk, forming cascading rapids along the lip of the street within minutes and soaking him through. People rushed around him to get to covered safety, parting around his still form as he stared at the restaurant in front of him, the distance in his eyes hinting at a focus on a moment long passed, unaware that he was being watched.

As though waking from his slumber and noticing the weather, he hunched in on himself, turning up the collar of his wet coat, and walked on.

~

The rain hadn’t started yet as Sam glanced out the window of the bookstore at the gathering gloom. He switched on the lamp on his desk as he flipped through the dusty book in his hands. Hardly any customers wound their way around the maze of shelves and Sam settled in for a long read.

The black box beside him gave a shudder and he glanced down at it warily. He looked up quickly at the nearby table covered in pendulums and was only somewhat relieved to see them still and undisturbed. He looked down at the box again and opened the lid. The soulmate card with the dancing flames was face up on top of the deck.

The glint of a moving silver chain attached to a slowly spinning deep blue sodalite stone caught his eye and he approached the pendulum in the window display. As he drew up to the window, movement outside caught his eye and he glanced up at a man feeding coins into a parking meter. He seemed vaguely familiar to Sam. He looked down at the pendulum again as the chain was pulled taught by the semi-precious stone that was pointing right at the man outside.

Sam looked back up quickly and his mind darted back to the soulmates card and the man that had been the green flame as he had come to him for help. This was not Dean he was seeing outside his window now, but as he lifted his head, like he could feel him watching him, Sam recognized the blue eyes as clearly as if he had seen them before. He raised his hand in greeting, unable to stop the smile from spreading on his face as he realized that Castiel had made it back into the physical world.

He hadn’t expected the frown to form on his face though as he glanced around behind him. He wondered at the reaction as he let his hand drop back to his side.

“He doesn’t remember anything,” cried out a distressed voice behind him.

Sam turned slowly, unsurprised to find the chubby man standing naked in his shop with tears streaming down his face. “Are you giving up on them? After all that?”

~

Silvered light flooded the apartment that had never really belonged to Dean as he gathered his few possessions and put them into his duffel bag. He dropped the bag by the door and looked around one last time trying to soak in the last of Castiel’s lingering presence. He tried not to look for him in the shadows of the room’s corners knowing full well that the spirit had left him for good.

He fought the numbness that tried to protect his bruised heart as he pulled the key off his keychain. He had had enough of feeling numb and living in a haze or half-forgotten dreams. He had made a promise to Castiel and he intended to keep it.

Dean put the key down on the little semi-circular table by the door and walked out, throwing the duffle over his shoulder as he let the door close behind him. He left the place behind as the traces of his own presence faded from between its walls.

~

Golden sunlight chased away all the shadows in the room as Castiel pushed open the door to his apartment. He looked around expectantly. He had spent a few days in the hospital as he recovered from his coma, the whole time driving his friends and colleagues nuts with his restlessness, suddenly showing up at patients’ bedsides and making suggestions to their attending nurses and doctors. They had finally sent him home, declaring him miraculously recovered but forcing him to take time off away from the bustling hospital.

Three night sleeping on Gabriel’s pull-out couch in his office was enough for him to insist on going back to his own home. After all, the tenant they had sublet it to had moved out, so there was no reason to not go back. As he looked around, expectancy dwindled into disappointment, though he couldn’t quite figure out why he felt that way. He looked around the silent living room with a frown on his face as his eyes landed on each of the familiar pieces of furniture.

Gabriel came barging in through the door lugging two suitcases and panting from his efforts bringing up the luggage on his own. Rowena was right behind him, poised and perfect as ever even with the bag of groceries in her arms. She closed the door behind them and headed to the kitchen.

“Oh God!” Gabriel gasped as he dropped the heavy suitcases to the floor.

“I offered to carry those up,” Castiel reminded him.

“No! I’m okay! Just need a minute,” he panted, leaning his hand against the wall.

“Fatherhood is making you soft.”

“Well, it certainly isn’t Rowena’s cooking.”

“I heard that,” came her sing-song voice from the kitchen, a grimace appearing on Gabriel’s face.

Castiel turned back to the stillness of the room and took his wallet and keys out of his blazer pockets and put them down on the table in the dining room. He smoothed his hand over the wood feeling a twinge of discomfort.

“Did you move something?” he asked his brother when he finally stopped his theatrics.

“No. Not as far as I know. I mean we did rent it out, but it was only for a month.”

Castiel frowned and looked around again. “It feels like something is missing.”

Rowena came out of the kitchen and swept the room with her eyes. “Everything’s here, dear. Just as you left it,” she said in her delicate lilt.

Castiel gave her a quick smile. “Of course. Thank you. It’s just been a long time I suppose.”

Gabriel walked up and slapped Castiel in the back affectionately. “You sure you’re going to be all right here by yourself?”

Castiel pulled his brother into a hug. “I’ll be fine. It’s time to get my life back together.”

He released Gabriel, who kept his hand on his shoulder as he looked him over with a nod. “I’m happy you’re back, bro. Just wasn’t the same without you.”

With a last smile, he moved off towards the door and Rowena moved to take his spot in Castiel’s arms. He always felt awkward hugging his brother’s tiny wife, she felt so small and delicate in his arms. That and it reminded him of the first time he met her when she had threatened him with a wink to turn him into a pile of feathers if he wrinkled her dress.

“Call us if you need anything,” she told him as she pulled away.

“I’ll see you Saturday.”

Rowena moved off towards the door where Gabriel was waiting for her. Quietly, he said to her, “See? I told you we shouldn’t have rented it out. Some junky probably stole something.”

“Hush, love. I told you, don’t worry about it.”

“You always say that, witchy woman.”

“That’s because, my tricky angel, I’m always right.”

The door closed on their casual banter and Castiel was left alone with his thoughts. He wandered over to the bow window and sat down on the couch. He could feel the warmth of the afternoon sunlight as it caressed his skin and he closed his eyes. He let the tingling feel of the sun’s kiss spread throughout his body making him feel light like he was more than flesh. It felt like he was made of air itself. His insides quivered from a strange familiarity and he relaxed into the comfort of the touch.

Castiel opened his eyes and saw nothing but the empty room and that feeling of absence gripped him again. He shook himself of his fanciful thoughts and his eyes landed on a white ring marring his coffee table. He frowned as he traced it with his finger, thinking that he should know how that got there. However, all his probing into his memories yielded nothing but a sense of something forgotten.

He stood from the couch looking for more changes so he could collect clues and piece together what had happened in his absence. As he moved closer to the hallway, a draft blew into the room carrying with it the sweet fragrance of blooming flowers. Bright light was coming from the normally dark hallway and he moved towards it to find that the door to the roof was wide open. He didn’t remember it being open when he came in. Maybe Gabriel or Rowena had opened it when they left. That didn’t explain why the air smelled of flowers though. There was nothing up there that should smell like that.

He made his way up the stairs slowly, wary of what he would find when he reached the top of the stairs. His mind went completely blank as he surveyed the previously barren rooftop that had somehow been transformed into a fairy tale garden of carefully planned architecture and serenity. Not an inch remained visible of the old metal roof as every bit of it was now covered in wooden walkways and river pebbles. Quietly cascading tiered fountains were nestled amongst potted shrubs and elevated flower beds. At the very centre of the roof the wooden paths met at a perfectly octagonal deck with a spiral of white and grey pebbles at its centre. Adirondack chairs in matching wood sat in the shade of leafy vine-wrapped pergolas like he had accidentally stumbled through a portal that had taken him to a small countryside bistro in Italy.

Castiel walked slowly, marvelling at the beauty that had miraculously sprouted on his roof. As he approached the spiral centre of the deck, he realized that he wasn’t alone in this dreamland. A man stood with his back to him, bent over at the waist as he worked a trowel in one of the larger pots. He straightened up and turned and Castiel recognized the man from the hospital at the same time that his eyes found him. He put the trowel down and started walking towards him, removing his gloves and tucking them into the back pocket of his jeans. Castiel felt that uneasiness take hold of him like it had at the hospital, prickling his scalp.

The man avoided his eyes as he approached, looking around at the garden while he pushed up the sleeves of his taupe coloured Henley. There was something familiar about him, Castiel realized, but like the ring on his table, he couldn’t figure out what. It felt like his soul was reaching for the man as he stepped onto the deck. It terrified him, turning his stomach to knots.

“Don’t worry,” the man told him when he finally looked up at him, “I’m not staying. I just wanted you to have your garden.”

His words made no sense, none of it did. “How did you get up here?” Castiel settled on asking him.

“Spare key. Under the fire extinguisher.”

The impossibility of the man freaked him out and he could feel that twisting panic in his gut: how did he know the things he knew? A sad smile pulled at his mouth as he dropped his eyes once more.

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to scare you,” he said as he started moving towards the walkway that would take him back to the apartment. “Goodbye, Cas,” he added almost like an afterthought.

Castiel could not explain the overwhelming rush of confusing emotions that had been evoked with the man calling him _Cas._ He had never liked nicknames, so why would _this_ man calling him _this_ nickname be any different? He turned to watch his retreating back and something clicked in his mind.

“Wait,” he called out, taking a step towards him.

The man stopped and turned expectantly, his face and the set of his shoulders betraying the hope that the man could barely contain. Castiel hesitated as he opened his mouth to speak to him. “I need the key,” he finally said.

The man took a deep breath and with his shoulders weighed down once more, he walked up to Castiel pulling something out of his jeans. As he drew closer, Castiel couldn’t help but feel like he knew him somehow. Everything about the man felt so familiar. He held out the hand holding the key palm down between them and waited.

Castiel stood, frozen in his confusion and just frowned at him. “How do I know you?”

“Maybe from your dreams,” he answered, the ache in his voice almost tangible like the lingering feel of a kiss.

Castiel brought up his hand to receive the key and the man brought his down to line up their palms, the skin barely brushing his. It was like an electric shock raced up Castiel’s arm and zapped into his mind unlocking what had been inaccessible a moment before and he gasped as the memories came flooding back to him: the apartment, the rooftop, the garden.

“Dean,” he said his name as he was wrapped in his presence, his whole body tingling as their souls embraced like long-lost lovers. “It wasn’t a dream.”

“No,” Dean gasped as he took a shaky breath.

He gripped Castiel’s arm tightly as his other hand came up to cradle his face, his touch so gentle, so warm, so _real._ Dean leaned forward, their foreheads pressing together as he closed his eyes, his breathing heavy like he had just been running.

Castiel raised his hand to his face, marveling that he could finally touch him, feel him. He couldn’t stop himself as his mouth crashed against Dean’s, feeling himself swell on the inside and burst apart as Dean’s arms wrapped around him, holding him tightly, both flesh and bone and finally together in the warm sunlight as they were always meant to be.


	15. Epilogue

In a cluttered and dusty bookshop, as all such places always seem to get no matter the care put into keeping them clean and tidy, surrounded by books on all sorts of creepy crawlies and four-legged beasties and holding more knowledge on such things than any other repository for the supernatural in the whole of the United States, Sam stood still, his eyes closed, as a chubby, ageless, naked man held a hand to his forehead. He watched, a dream planted directly into his mind, as the twin flames of the soulmates, Dean and Castiel, embraced.

“That’s awesome,” he said with a smile, as cupid pulled his hand away and the image faded from his sight but remained in his memories.

“Thanks for all your help, Sam.”

“No problem. Good job with the garden.”

With a nod and a genuine, child-like smile of pure delight, cupid disappeared leaving Sam to look around the bookshop feeling deeply satisfied.

“Cool,” he said to no one in particular as he quietly went back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it :-)  
Thank you to my amazing Beta readers, Caged_Heat_40, Wisdom_of_Insanity, and Julia_Houston... This story would not be what it is without all your help and input.
> 
> Til next time Facers!


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